“I don’t remember what I said—probably I
didn’t say anything. I was too busy feeling the pressure of those
narrow stone walls. It was like one of the tiny domed crypts you
see in monasteries, where for centuries layer after layer of monks
have been buried against the Second Coming. I couldn’t shake the
impression that this was a visitation from beyond the grave, that I
was holding conversation with a shade.
“‘I wanted you to know that I don’t hold
anything against you,’ he went on. He was rubbing his hands up and
down against the fabric of his trousers, probably because he was
cold. ‘I don’t suppose that means very much to you now, but it may
someday when this war, like all the others, has found its place in
history. You understand, don’t you, that I was condemned simply
because I was on the losing side?’
“He knew it wasn’t true. You could see it in
his face—it was just something he would have liked to believe.
“‘What will you do now?’
“ ‘Find the rest of you,’ I said, smiling at
him. I wanted him to know. I was enjoying myself. ‘With time, I’ll
work my way up to your second in command. Hagemann isn’t making it
as easy as you did. He isn’t waiting around the house for someone
to come and arrest him. But I’ll find him.’
“‘You think so, do you?’ He was smiling
too—he seemed to think I was faintly comical. ‘I wish I could be
alive to see that, but I don’t think Hagemann will have the moral
imagination to appreciate someone like you. Hagemann, I’m afraid,
thinks in rather more practical terms.
“‘But you had better hurry, my friend. You
see, there’s a time limit on the Colonel.’”
Christiansen was looking at the glowing tip
of his cigarette with evident distaste. After a few seconds of
motionless silence, he drew the ball of his thumb across his left
eyelid in a way that suggested he was prey to unpleasant
recollections.
“I didn’t know what he was talking about of
course,” he went on. “And it was obviously intended as some kind of
riddle, so there wouldn’t have been any point in asking for an
explanation. He was to mount the gallows in fifteen days, if he
wanted to be gnomic there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
“‘Someone told me you were a musician.’ Von
Goltz leaned toward me so that our shoulders were almost touching.
The cello, isn’t it? I play the violin, did you know? Nothing in
comparison with yourself of course, but not too badly for a
soldier. Hagemann always undervalued the beautiful. Perhaps
someday, however, he may come to appreciate his limitations. Do you
really think you can catch him? Actually, I rather hope you do.
I’ll even tell you something that might help you—that’ll make two
little jokes I’ve played on him since our parting.’
“And then he reached inside the breast pocket
of his tunic—they had removed all the insignia of his rank from the
uniform, even the brass buttons—and took out a sheet of paper. It
contained the names of fifteen officers and men of the Fifth
Brigade, along with their ranks and. in a few cases, cities of
origin. He must have copied it out during the trial, since
prisoners weren’t allowed writing instruments in their cells
“ These people were closest to Hagemann,” he
said, and put the list into my hand. ‘And you are wondering why I
would do such a thing to my own subordinate? It’s merely a question
of evening the odds. The SS does strange things to a man’s soul—I
suppose I can’t break the habit of playing God.’
“He wasn’t smiling anymore. He was perfectly
serious. I looked at the list, noted that about half the names were
of people either in prison already or known to be dead, and put it
in my pocket.
“‘Why didn’t you run?’ I asked him. For some
reason the question had never occurred to me before. ‘Why didn’t
you join the others in South America, or wherever the hell they
went? You must have known you were on the lists as a war
criminal.’
“Do you know what his answer was?”
Christiansen leaned toward Leivick as he stabbed out his cigarette
and set the ashtray down on the floor. His eyes were wide and
rather fierce, almost challenging.
“I wouldn’t have any idea.”
Christiansen smiled at him—if that was the
word for the expression on his face. At any rate, he had the answer
he wanted.
“‘I haven’t any talent for that sort of
thing.’ In just those words. I suppose it was a kind of boast.”
The story was finished, but it left its
residue. Everyone seemed to be waiting, even Christiansen, for
General von Goltz, dead and in a grave at the Rebdorf Prison
cemetery for half a year, to make his final confession.
“Yes—it is just what he would have said.”
They all looked at the girl, as if only just
that
moment aware of
her presence. Her arms were folded across her chest.
Is she
cold?
Leivick found himself wondering. The room was quite
comfortable, but she appeared to be trembling. Her eyes were wet,
and her mouth twitched under the stress of some emotion she
probably couldn’t have explained even to herself.
“He was always just that way, always charming
while he traded people off against each other like chess pieces. He
would always insist upon having the final word.”
“He certainly seems to have had it this
time.”
Leivick got up from his divan, listening to
his knees crack under him. He wanted another cup of coffee badly
enough to kill for it. Of course there was none. They couldn’t even
make any themselves because they were out of grounds.
Then it occurred to him that this was, after
all, a hotel, and that in Vienna anything could be had simply by
picking up the telephone.
“They can take the dishes away while they’re
at it,” Christiansen announced gently. Leivick turned around and
stared at him, but the mind reader had lost interest in his
trick.
“I’ve often thought that if I’d understood
everything von Goltz was trying not to tell me during this
interview I’d have Hagemann right where I want him.” The fingers of
Christiansen’s left hand curled unconsciously into a fist.
“‘Hagemann always undervalued the beautiful.’ Perhaps by now he’s
seen his mistake.”
He was looking at the girl with a calm,
speculative gaze. Hadn’t he said from the beginning that she would
be the bait for their trap? Leivick felt himself going cold
inside.
And the girl, what must she have felt?
Christiansen’s eyes seemed to hold her, as if she couldn’t have
looked away if she wanted to. Yes, in all probability, if
Christiansen were to ask her she would risk putting herself back
within Hagemann’s reach.
The poor little creature—she sat there still,
in her shabby, wrinkled black dress, thin-faced and friendless.
Yes, of course, even if she didn’t know it yet herself, she had
fallen in love with that hard-eyed angel of vengeance, God help
her.
Leivick stared at the telephone receiver
which he held in his right hand, wondering what he was doing with
it, and then set it back down on its cradle. His throat ached with
pity and a bad conscience.
“We should get Miss Rosensaft some new
clothes,” he said finally. It was an obvious enough remark, but
having made it gave him a peculiar satisfaction. “Perhaps later
this afternoon would not be too early. What do you think,
Christiansen?
He purposely avoided glancing in Itzhak’s
direction—he could feel that black look boring through the back of
his head without having to confirm it.
“I suppose so. She can’t go around in that.”
He shrugged his shoulders, still looking at the girl exactly as if
she were a piece of furniture. The mask was firmly in place today,
Leivick noted to himself. “Is there a department store or something
around here? I don’t think it’s worth the risk of taking her into
the International Zone. You’d better bring your pistol, Dessauer,
and we’ll give her a proper bodyguard.”
The expression on Itzhak’s face showed
clearly enough that Christiansen had made precisely the right
move.
“But could I have a bandage or something
first?” the girl asked. She did not seem as pleased as Itzhak by
the prospect of the afternoon’s outing. She was grasping her right
arm protectively, just below the elbow. “I don’t want the
saleswomen to see my number.”
It was one of those moments when the sense of
astonishment comes perhaps two or three seconds ahead of the idea
that prompts it. It was like being startled from behind. Leivick,
who was standing beside the dresser, found it necessary to wait a
little, just to be sure he was sufficiently in command of himself
to speak at all.
“Surely it isn’t on that arm. my dear,” he
said at last, a little surprised at the evenness of his own voice.
“It’s on the left, isn’t it?”
Instead of answering, the girl undid the two
little buttons on her right sleeve and pushed it back. The number
was there, sure enough.
“No—don’t cover it up again. Where did you
get that, at Chelmno?”
“At Waldenburg,” came the answer. Clearly she
wasn’t enjoying the conversation; she wouldn’t even look him full
in the face.
“There were no serial numbers at Waldenburg.”
Leivick felt almost as if he were passing a death sentence. “If a
prisoner was brought in from another camp, one of the work camps. .
. But they didn’t bother at Waldenburg—why should they? There were
too few inmates, and they planned from the beginning to kill them
all in one run when the project was finished. You never got that
number at Waldenburg, Esther.”
The girl brushed the sleeve back into place
with a single angry gesture. She looked from Leivick to
Christiansen and then back again, and her little mouth had
compressed into a thin, colorless line.
“You old bastard, what do you know?” she
shouted suddenly. “I was there, not you—me! You think I did this to
myself? General von Goltz himself, that last night. . .”
And then, all at once, she couldn’t speak at
all. She seemed to be choking. She couldn’t make a sound, not even
to cry. It took her a long time.
“He did this to me. He took me over to the
other camp, where I could see the bodies, the dead men, piled up
like logs.” She took a deep breath, as if she were breaking through
to the surface from deep under water. “He burned this into my arm.
and then he took me away. I hated him then! I wished he had let me
die there.”
It was over. She was quiet again, but you
could read it in her eyes—that terrible, burning sincerity of
youth. Of course she had been telling the truth.
Leivick knelt down beside her, took her right
arm in his hands, and pushed the sleeve back as gently as if he
were uncovering a fresh wound. She didn’t try to resist him.
“I’ve never seen such a number,” he said.
“‘G4/3454641.’ There were only a few thousand prisoners at
Waldenburg—even at Auschwitz the numbers didn’t get above five
digits. I’ve never seen one that begins with a letter, or carries a
stroke mark. What does the ‘G’ stand for? Was the
Herr
General
signing his work?”
She glared at him. She hated him at that
moment, and why not? Leivick couldn’t find it in his heart to blame
her.
“He did this to you himself?
He
did
it?”
She didn’t even have to answer. Leivick let
go of her arm, and it dropped back into her lap like something
dead.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” It was
Christiansen who had spoken. He had risen without being heard and
was standing beside the sofa. He put his scarred hand on the girl’s
shoulder. “‘Hagemann always undervalued the beautiful.’ ‘That’ll
make two little jokes I’ve played on him since our parting.’”
Yes, of course. It was perfectly obvious.
That was why Esther Rosensaft hadn’t died at Waldenburg—she was the
bearer of a message. Leivick stood up and looked at Christiansen,
smiling a trifle uncertainly.
“Yes, of course. The number—it’s some kind of
a code.”
12
A message—yes. But to whom, and about what?
How much was it possible to know about a cipher tattooed across a
girl’s arm?
“It may not even be a code,” Mordecai said,
not looking very happy with his discovery. “It may be nothing more
than a number—a safe-deposit box number perhaps. We are talking
about how von Goltz decided to transmit the instructions for a
technical process—a formula, if you wish. There will be
papers—procedural notes, perhaps even blueprints. He had to have
stored them somewhere safe. A bank, probably. Somewhere in the
western military zone, I should think.”
They were alone. Dessauer was on guard duty
outside Esther’s bedroom door while she took a nap—she was still a
trifle punchy from all the narcotics she had had pumped into her—so
Christiansen had suggested he and Mordecai step across the street
to a Kaffeehaus for a quiet word or two. They sat hunched over
their cups, on either side of a small table next to a plate-glass
window through which the pale sun of a fine, cold late winter’s
afternoon was shining like a promise. Each of them was smoking one
of Christiansen’s American cigarettes.
“One thing’s for sure—we’ll have to have that
tattoo removed. We don’t know whether Hagemann knows what he’s
looking for or not, but we can’t very well take the chance. We’ll
have to have it cut out. I think she’ll be just as happy about
it.”
Mordecai nodded in agreement. He probably
already had a doctor in mind. Mordecai always seemed to know just
the right people for any little thing that needed doing.
“And we shall have to have a watch on her at
all times,” he said. “She is the key to everything now—well,
certainly one of them.”
He smiled. He was making a joke.
Christiansen, who had had enough riddles for one day, merely
waited
“There is a real key. of course. At least
there is if my theory about the safe-deposit box is correct. I
should imagine Hagemann has that. How much else he knows we shall
have to find out.” He shrugged his shoulders; he was not
underestimating the difficulty. “We have our piece of the puzzle,
and he has his. And, of course, his standing with his Arab backers,
perhaps even his life, depends upon his acquiring both.”