The Road to Ithaca

by Ben Pastor

  “Oh?” Busch turned to face him. He seemed genuinely entertained by Bora’s words. “Yes, yes, we heard you were one of General Blaskowitz’s scrupulous boys in Krakow. We’re not in Krakow, and I guarantee that in three weeks you’ll be eating your self-righteousness. Tell me: you get along with your employer, Count von der Schulenburg – yes?”

  Getting along, when referring to a top diplomat and a young company officer in his employ, was an expression wholly out of place. Bora made an effort not to wonder about it. “As you may judge from my present charge, Herr Major, I am at the margins of His Excellency’s circle.”

  “Are you?” Busch seemed in no hurry to leave the relative comfort of the shady lane, or else he meant to keep Bora cornered and listening. “His son, Fritz-Dietlof – quite the traditional soldier. Refers to civilians as ‘mob’, the old-fashioned way. An interesting career, from police vice-chief in Berlin to deputy president of Upper and Lower Silesia, to officer in the 9th Infantry Regiment. Does he frequently phone the embassy in Moscow?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Herr Major.”

  “No, of course you wouldn’t. It isn’t part of your job.”

  Bora’s sense of alarm was heightened, but the reason for it was too vague to pinpoint. “Should it be?”

  “It should.”

  The conversation seemed to end there, but Bora wasn’t about to content himself with half-words at this point. “Is there anything in particular I ought to know regarding phone conversations at the embassy, or conversations in general?”

  Busch looked away from him, and at the ruined house across the street. “Well” – he spoke slowly, conserving energy even in his speech – “it’s all right as long as one preaches ‘manorial socialism’, Prussian-style, in the manner of Luddite estate owners who reject industrialization and city life. That’s picturesque. The choice of tea-party guests, however – I expect you’re not acquainted with Admiral Tirpitz’s grandson Harro Schulze-Boysen, or his wife Libertas.” (Bora confirmed he was not.) “He works for the Ministry of the Air Force, and we have reason to believe he frequents among others one Alexander Korotkov of the Soviet news service, assigned to Stalin’s embassy in Berlin.”

  The story, wholly unexpected, was so extreme that Bora doubted what he was hearing. “Is this a test?”

  “When you’re put to the test, you’ll know it. Keep your ears open for any father–son phone exchanges between the Schulenburgs, or between the ambassador and senior government advisor Arvid Harnack. We have it from a reliable source in Casablanca that someone in that diplomatic circle is leaking information about our forthcoming Russian plans. I don’t know about you, but I make a distinction between intellectual discontent and treason.”

  And he’d been ordered to act engagingly in public toward leftist foreigners like Erskine Caldwell and his lilac-loving wife! Bora was in a cold sweat.

  “I’ll keep my ears open, Herr Major.”

  “Good, I thought so. Undersecretary Manoschek thinks highly of you.”

  “Manoschek!”

  “He’s not so stupid as you think he is. He kept us informed. When you were shipped off more than 3,000 miles away to fetch wine, we suspected they meant to remove an Abwehr officer from the embassy for a few days. When they stuck you with a prickly murder case to solve here, we knew they needed more time before that Abwehr officer returned to Moscow. Manoschek is in Berlin to check things out at that end. We keep under strict surveillance all incoming and outgoing embassy phone calls at present.” Busch resumed walking. “See there?” He pointed out a shopfront a few doors past the ruined house, reachable by climbing down a few stone steps. “That’s one of the establishments where you must go to secure good-quality Mandilaria. Ask for Panagiotis. Now please follow me.”

  Bora couldn’t find one word to say. So this was what the expression “pulling the rug out from under one’s feet” meant. We, as used by the major, could stand for the intelligence network in North Africa as much as for a pinch of entrepreneurial Abwehr officers ranging far beyond their territorial bounds. He knows about me in Poland, my troubles with the SS: unless he was there, he’s unusually well-connected. What else does he know?

  Their destination, a dark little cafe recycled as a canteen, let out a sour, less than inviting odour of spilt beer, piss and whiffs of seafood being fried in olive oil, a fitting image of two cultures forced together by war. Preceding him to the threshold, Busch decided to answer Bora’s scruples about solving the case. “Unless light is shed on this murder, Rittmeister, a reprisal will follow. There must be culprits; they will be fabricated if necessary.” Once indoors, only his voice remained, like the Cheshire Cat’s smile. “I bet you’re wishing you were still charged with raiding Cretan cellars.”

  Ten minutes later they were still there. Busch whispered useful details over a large glass of water and mint; Bora listened and sipped an insipid coffee made from instant powder, barely warm. Bitter dark grains, still undissolved, frothed on the surface; he crunched them under his teeth because they were the sole thing in the cup to have a taste. In the dimly lit room, maybe five metres in length, the odour of damp plaster and brick dust combined with the smells he had already perceived before entering. Around a table some mountain Jäger sat guzzling beer directly from the bottle. For all of their apparent relaxation they were armed to the teeth, like dogs placidly chewing on their bone but ready to yank the chain to jump you.

  Busch kept his tone to a level that allowed the sharing of news otherwise best imparted in private. “What’s the right expression? In camera caritatis, between you and me, Dr Unger tells me squads like the one in question, belonging to the same regiment, were involved in post-battle incidents both in the French campaign and here, resulting in the deaths of civilians. It’s possible it went as we’re told.”

  “Why should we pursue it, then?” Still troubled by the previous conversation, Bora felt something close to resentment. He didn’t like drinking places, their odours and their customers.

  Glancing to his left, away from the street entrance, through a low back door he could make out a tiled space, the size of a lift shaft, shady like a square well of high brick walls. There, the angle of a little free-standing structure, hardly more than a sentry box, signalled the fetid latrine. A skirting of mildew met the green mush at the foot of the brick wall, fissured from top to bottom as if lightning had struck it and tried to halve it. Out of sight, something made of metal, unhinged or loose, squeaked like a rusty weathervane on the upper half of the wall. “The investigation should rest with the War Crimes Bureau or the Red Cross, Major Busch, aside from the fact that those in question may try to sabotage the enquiry in any way they can.”

  “They’ll do that in any case.”

  “Why not involve the Air Force Abwehr, then? It’s way out of our competence; lack of collaboration is understandable under the circumstances.” Bora tensely squared his shoulders. Ever since he’d entered the canteen something he couldn’t quite put his finger on had raised his level of alertness. The habit of keeping physically on the lookout even when his thoughts were elsewhere made him uneasy, but feeling uneasy was not yet perceiving a threat. It had nothing to do with his new task as far as he could tell – any doubts in that regard were wholly rational. Whatever it was that tried to distract him, or gain his attention, had no recognizable source. Here and now, Bora wasn’t even sure which of his senses was involved. He said, “As I see it, the Reichskommissar wants the truth, regardless of Reichsmarschall Göring’s Air Force; the War Crimes Bureau is concerned with IRC reactions if there’s no attempt to look diligently into things; the LW rejects all accusations and resents any intervention from the outside. Only two out of three want a culprit; two out of three – not the same as above – hope we Germans have nothing to do with the deaths. Are we expected to show we made an effort, or are we serious about this?”

  Receiving no answer only increased his restlessness. He understood a change of mood when Busch suddenly switched topic and raised hi
s voice. “The Venetian bastions and gates mark Iraklion’s perimeter; it’s a spiderweb where if you follow a radius from the centre out, you can’t help leaving town and you can’t get lost.”

  “Right.” Bora exchanged a curt acknowledgement with two newly arrived lieutenants in baggy paratrooper garb. It would be superfluous to tell the major that if he hadn’t lost his way in a metropolis like Moscow, it was unlikely he’d be trapped in Iraklion. The officers reached the counter, ordered beer, and withdrew to a table by the entrance.

  “Go and see about the wine after lunch,” Busch went on in the same audible tone. “That way you’ll have the crates ready to go when you’re done.”

  “I will.” Bora put down the cup without finishing his coffee. Seemingly, the extent of his enquiry would remain undetermined for the time being. It might all depend on the “hairy phone calls” to be made once back at the hotel. It was safe to assume they were meant to obtain permission to proceed, clearing the path through Air Force resistance with a general officer’s direct order. Not the best way to start an investigation. He’d have to pack in all the necessary groundwork within the next few hours, so that meeting Sinclair in the morning would find him prepared to ask pertinent questions.

  The squeaky grating of loose metal out back jarred his nerves. He blamed his state of alert on it, but his physical response was disproportionate to the source. It’s something else, he tried to reason, and there’s a touch of danger behind it. It wants to be seen, or heard, or smelt. Whichever sense is involved, I must isolate it by a process of elimination. Are the paratroopers behind me spying on us, commenting? Surely Busch’s vagueness suggests one or the other. But they aren’t the threat, not yet. Whatever it is, it is about hearing. I feel I’m straining to catch voices, sounds I don’t actually hear. So, what good does instinct do? “Panagiotis will direct you where there’s excellent bottled Dafni to be had” – Busch continued his artificial dialogue. “Once you secure however many bottles you need —”

  Bora’s alarm peaked. Impulsively, he looked beyond the major’s shoulders. It’s not what he’s saying, nor the whispered talk around the tables. It isn’t words at all. From the cramped little passage to the latrine, the whine of corroded metal kept coming. Is that it? No, that’s not it, either. The source, however, the locus was, there.

  Busch didn’t have time to finish the sentence. From out back the inaudible crossed the threshold of hearing: the ominous sounds of a hull about to break into pieces, a deep groan of planking and beams under great pressure. In the twilight of the canteen, Busch barely completed a startled about-face before everything in the rear of the building came crashing down. The mouldy brick wall imploded, folded over the latrine and its cramped enclosure. Masonry, baked clay, pieces of blighted plaster painted and unpainted, gutter pipes, roof tiles erupted through the back door into the canteen. Counter and shelves shook, bottles fell. A choking haze blasted in like a volcanic cloud.

  Realizing that the cave-in was not actually above them was little consolation to the clients, overwhelmed by scattered fragments and powdered limestone. In an overturn of tables and chairs, Jäger and paratroopers scrambled to the exit, gagging, cursing in the dust storm and shouting obvious and irrelevant comments, such as “Shit almighty, I was just there in the loo!” Bora and the major were the last to emerge from the canteen (after all, you have to show your colleagues how cool-headed the Army is about things). Dust dispersed quickly in the open.

  The dazed communication among survivors was reduced to blasphemy and grumble. As they stood in the lane brushing themselves off, cracking and snapping sounds went on for nearly a minute, followed by the metallic clank of falling bricks.

  “Is everybody out?” one of the paratrooper officers called, counting heads. “Everybody’s out.” The impassive Busch had lost his pith helmet in the confusion, and grime stuck to his sweaty head. “So much for that.” He might be referring to his headgear or to his interrupted drink. “Bora, let’s go back to the hotel.”

  A preoccupied Bora followed. The question stands: what good does a sixth sense do if it doesn’t shield you from trouble? One might as well turn it off.

  Together they rounded the corner from the lane onto the main street. There, an Air Force patrol did its rounds unaware of the incident. The men stomped as they marched, and sang, “Paratroopers, paratroopers, / right on, ’gainst our foe!” shouting the last three words.

  Whether the synchronous tread of boots had anything to do with it, or else cave-ins follow a sympathetic mode in old, crowded towns, just then a row of evacuated houses – thus far apparently unharmed by the air raids – came down one after the other. Their facades slid vertically of their own accord, as if pared away by a knife. Walls in pale, chalky colours appeared in a totter and dangle of cheap furnishings and framed pictures of long-dead relatives or who knows what, an iron bed tilted foot first, half in, half out. From the cascading stonework a bloom of bright dust sparkled and seemed to catch fire in the sun.

  The patrol transiting below was nearly crushed by debris. Bora saw the paratroopers scatter, and then react back-to-back in a defensive cluster, as if you could ward off raining bricks. A whirlwind of dust rained over them, engulfed them, drifted here and there. Within seconds the heaviest particles began to settle like foil in a snow globe. In the agitated middle of it, a ghostly figure writhed to disentangle itself from under the rubble. Even from a distance, army trousers and haircut gave him away as non-Greek. Naked to the waist, white with atomized chalk like a fish ready to be fried – Bora wondered if the frying pan in the canteen was still going, a completely ridiculous thought at this time – a British or Anzac soldier crawled out of a basement on all fours but unafraid; his entire self had a look of spiteful defiance when they jerked him up by the arms and pointed guns at him.

  “Imagine that. They come up like rats,” Busch said through his teeth. “There’s got to be hundreds still around, Christ knows how many on the island.”

  As if on cue, one of the paratroopers obliged the major’s curiosity by levelling his weapon and firing at will against something else that moved across the ruins. Feet planted in the rubble, a half-rotation of his torso was all it took. No anger at all in the burst from his machine gun; at most a vicarious comeuppance after being forced to hang fire before an enemy regular. One, two figures trying to scamper off went down, like animals at the slaughterhouse. Greek deserters or conscripts? Civilians? Impossible to say; they only had their underwear on.

  Bora heard one of the mountain Jäger in the lane behind him utter, “What the hell…?” and run up to gawk. They all hurried past in a group, as if they could only move or think together. They carried the salvaged bottles of beer with them in hand and underarm, as there was “no trusting the canteen,” they said, “with a gas stove for frying that could blow sky-high at any time.”

  Down the street the paratroopers searched the wreckage. Over rubbish and litter, slowly, braiding a wake of mealy dust, a requisitioned truck with Arabic plates from the British experience in Africa arrived to claim the living and the dead.

  “Let’s go, the telephone will be working now.” No remark escaped Busch on what had passed from the moment he’d seen the Briton captured. He turned around, taking measured, sure steps with his scythe-like gait.

  Maybe the two Greeks were not dead, who knows, or not dead enough. Bora heard the pop of handguns administering a coup de grâce as he followed the major up the sun-gorged street. At this very moment they’re passing through the narrows of Purgatory, if the Orthodox believe in it.

  At the Megaron, after the phone calls, there was time for a sandwich, and Bora was assigned a room upstairs for the night. Busch yanked open with the bottle opener the second-last Afri-Cola he kept by his desk. “I’m busy until 17.00 hours or so,” he said. “Go up and change or whatever, check on the wine and then wait until you’re called.” The angle of the sun having progressed, there was less of a dazzle around him. His mirrored double looked altogether dim as he
joined in the toast. “Oh, wait,” he said, calling Bora back. “I forgot to tell you: I’ve got the name of your liaison in the First Battalion, Captain Gottwald Preger.”

  “Captain Waldo Preger?”

  “Why, yes. Excellent soldier. Do you know him?”

  “Well, I knew he was in the airborne troops. We used to play together as children.”

  “Small world. All the better, then.”

  Bora saluted and left the room. No point in telling Busch he wasn’t sure the acquaintance would help matters. Preger was the son of the family gamekeeper at Trakehnen: for all of Nina von Bora’s broad-mindedness, the unequal relationship had turned awkward once the boys had grown. They’d last met three years earlier at the Preger home, back from separately volunteering in Spain. National Socialist egalitarianism or not, the old gamekeeper’s deference towards young Freiherr von Bora had embarrassed them both.

  As boys, on account of something or other they’d flown at each other one day and fought like wild dogs. His brother Peter, barely seven, had run home crying, with the result that Bora’s stepfather had intervened with the heavy-handedness of a massive, irate Prussian general. He’d literally carried the feisty Martin by the scruff of the neck to the gamekeeper’s home, and made him apologize to Waldo’s parents. And that was regardless of who started it or where the right lay.

  It had smarted at the time, but Bora was used to iron discipline. Climbing to his fifth-floor hotel room, he took comfort in the thought that the reason for the boyhood contrast was lost to memory, at least as far as he was concerned. Either they had been playing rough and things had degenerated, or else there was some sort of juvenile principle involved. At a time when Bora’s summers in fascist Rome had weaned him off monarchist ideas, most salaried small administrators still felt strongly about them. It was just as possible they’d thrashed each other over Hindenburg’s presidency while playing cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians. What was certain was that he’d gone to receive Confirmation at St Mary’s Church with a black eye.