Christopher's Ghosts

by Charles McCarry

  “Just how tempted are you, Yeho?”

  “What I want to do is try him in open court. But as I already told you, the problem with Stutzer has always been that he cannot be tried for his crimes. When he was a Nazi he killed everybody he ever met in his life except you, even his own men by leading them into a trap. Hubbard is dead, who knows what happened to your mother. You’re the only witness. As far as we know, nobody else who ever saw him lived to tell the tale.”

  Christopher said, “So my role as you see it is to identify him in a court of law?”

  “We both know that can’t happen,” Yeho replied. “Anyway, what charge would be enough? What sentence? Would hanging or a firing squad or tying him covered with honey to an anthill in Africa be enough?”

  Christopher said, “Yeho, stop. If nothing is enough to even the score, tell me, please, what you plan to do with him.”

  Yeho said, “I’m going to let you talk to him some more. Then we’ll decide. Right now it’s your turn.” Yeho hissed and when Heidi looked up, pointed a finger first at Christopher, then at Stutzer. To Christopher he said, “Go. Take your time.”

  In the bow of the ship, Stutzer was crouching now instead of kneeling. Christopher stood over him. He said, “Stand up.”

  Stutzer rose painfully to his feet. Swaying a little, he stood at attention, heels together, back rigid, eyes straight ahead. His posture was a confession that he wished to make a good impression. He was at his captor’s orders. However, now that the moment for interrogation had come at last, Christopher had no questions for him. He did not care what Stutzer remembered or did not remember or whether he understood that Christopher was who he was.

  In loud German Christopher said, “You remember this place?”

  Even louder, as though he had a greater right to the German language than this impostor, looking Christopher straight in the eye, Stutzer replied in English, “Everything!” He pronounced the diphthong as if it were the German z. His tone was prideful. Yeho was right: this man liked himself. He was proud of his memories.

  Christopher had had no intention of doing what he did half a second later, no inkling, even, that he was going to do it. As if someone else were using his body, without forethought, without emotion, Christopher picked Stutzer up and threw him over the side of the ship. Stutzer weighed so little that Christopher half expected that he would drift on the wind like a big insect. Instead he fell like the bag of bones that he was, white towels fluttering away in the night, and made a phosphorescent splash when he hit the water.

  No one cried man overboard. A searchlight came on and swept the water. Christopher expected to see nothing. But the circle of bluish light found him and blinded him.

  Stutzer was alive, thrashing as if trying to swim the trudgeon. His movements, wild and uncontrolled, resembled the gestures he used to make when having one of his tantrums. If he was screaming, no one could hear him. The thrashing, frantic at first, slowed as the cold took hold of him, and after a few seconds, not longer than that, he sank beneath the surface, creating a dimple in the water that sealed itself almost at once. No one but Christopher had moved or spoken. For several minutes the light stayed on the spot where Stutzer had drowned, but no boat was lowered, no life preserver flung. No effort whatsoever was made to rescue him. At length the searchlight went out. The diesels throbbed, the screw bit into the sea. The Olaster shuddered and made way.

  Not much had happened. Not much had changed.

  Paul, from whom Christopher had not heard in years, said, “My God, how I loved her.”