Authors: Ben Pastor
Bora was seething, but he’d also lied to Mantau, after all – or at least given him only half the truth. The tank had been gone from Lui Pastera since dawn on Wednesday. Once in Field Marshal Manstein’s hands in Zaporozhye, Tibyetsky’s new tank model was off limits to anyone but the Field Marshal’s closest collaborators.
Despite the war damage, there were several medical facilities in Kharkov, and no practical way of knowing if Khan’s body had been brought to any of them. Bora could not afford a wild goose chase at this point. Deep down, he hoped against hope that the RSHA had been lying all the time. Tibyetsky could still be alive and in their hands, possibly out of the Kharkov Oblast or Ukraine altogether.
Bentivegni will have to get a view of the
corpse before we accept the story as true. Hanging Russians is cheap, and there’s no guarantee Mantau told it as it was.
Before leaving the SS first-aid station Bora checked the fuel gauge, an automatic reflex on this straitened front. The Aerodrome, on the highway that led north to Belgorod and Moscow, sat in an area where – aside from the pre-revolutionary horse track – a large cemetery, barracks, gardens and a massive tile factory in various states of disrepair formed the north-eastern suburbs of the city. Bora had driven that way other times, especially during his first stint in Kharkov. Larisa lived not far away, in Pomorki, and more than once he’d sat in his vehicle looking at her house from a distance, without ever walking up to her door.
An easterly breeze pushed the oppressive clouds ahead of itself, undoing their thick vapours. At this time, Colonel Bentivegni would be midway through his flight from Kiev, which meant at least an hour’s wait by the runway. Outside the entrance to the landing field, Bora was tempted to make time for himself and read Dikta’s letter, but he had an almost superstitious reserve about reading her words in his present state of anxiety. He fingered and hefted the envelope without unsealing it, grateful to her mother’s high-ranking lover for eluding censorship. Dikta was often intimate in her expressions, always suggestive; thinking of army employees poring through words meant for him before he did had made him shy and resentful over the last three years. Its size and weight suggested there was a card inside, or a photograph. Bora kissed the envelope and put it away.
Tonight
, he told himself.
However it goes with Bentivegni, tonight I’ll find a quiet moment to read it. Postponing pleasure, they say, sees you through otherwise dismal days
.
So he decided to pass time by driving north, past the Aerodrome’s entrance, beyond the old brick stables and the thinning-out buildings. Up there, a west–east
balka
formed a swell beyond which the road parted the Shevchenko industrial area on one side and on the other the beginning of the vast woods of the Biological Institute, a park that had become wilderness. Already
the horizon was immense; sluices and wet spots overflowed across the rolling fields. On both sides of the road, steam rose from the sodden grassland and from the ditches that ran to the Kharkov River. Above the Pyatikhatky forest, south of Lisne, hovered a grandiose scene of rain coming down in sheets and gaps opening and closing in the storm clouds. Bora drove a short way up the Belgorodskye highway, and then to a clearing off the road on the right. There, he stopped to take some photos from behind the wheel, because he’d have sunk to his ankles in the mud outside.
At 10.15 a.m. the aeroplane touched down. It was a rickety-looking pre-war Ju-52 that even at its top speed of 260 kilometres per hour could not have done much against headwinds. No wonder Bentivegni had had to wait out the storm in Kiev.
Bora greeted the colonel on the much-mended runway. He saw no point in delaying the inevitable unpleasantness, so he simply gave Mantau’s version of the facts, which was all they had at this time.
Although they’d often communicated since Bentivegni had taken over Section III in September ’39, it was the first time they had met in person. With the face of a bulldog under the new “standard cap” many wore these days – even outside of the mountain troops – the middle-aged, sunburned Bentivegni, in his mixed summer and winter uniform, instantly managed to layer an image of control over his total astonishment. He had shaved recently and as best he could, judging by the nicks on his chin.
“It’s extremely serious news,” he said in a clipped voice. Only his stiff-necked stance suggested how hard the blow must have hit him. No other form of disappointment transpired. Bora was left to wonder whether Khan had been an
Abwehr
operative or not, and if he had, for how long. What both of them were thinking (that it was unexpected but conceivable that it could have happened, and now that it had, what next?) did not surface at all.
“Herr Oberst, I assume all responsibility for what happened.”
“None of this is your responsibility, Major.” Bentivegni had a small knapsack with him, which he now calmly let down from his shoulders and brought to rest on the ground – a sign they would speak here, away from all ears. “What happens from now on will be. Give me details.”
Bora did. Bentivegni listened while fixing his gaze beyond his interlocutor, an
Abwehr
habit which allowed the listener to appear marginally interested while (Bora knew) nothing actually escaped their peripheral vision. At the end of the report, his comment was, “We must first confirm the truth of Captain Mantau’s statement. He’ll try to keep it from you, but I expect you to reconstruct exactly what happened. Not the charge I’m sure you expected or were hoping for, but the organization of your regiment gives you the perfect cover to stay in this area. Assuming there
is
a death and they have nothing to do with it, the Central Security Office as a whole will take the blow as we do, although Amt IV Gruppenführer Müller will be very cross. I predict Odilo Mantau won’t have an easy time of it. As for us, we knew as far back as 1939 that it’s the Gestapo’s job to keep an eye on the army in the field. It’s our task to work around it. Unless there’s a lead to follow through Mantau, act as if we have dropped the Tibyetsky matter, Major. If Gebietskommissar Stark enquires about this morning’s spat, say the disagreement between you and the captain was exclusively about the Russian workers. It was very improvident of Mantau to let out that Tibyetsky had been killed, and at the district commissioner’s office to boot. Either he’s lost his cool – we know his history – or he meant to make a scene for reasons of his own.” A sunbeam out of the clouds suddenly spread a lake of bright light around the men, dazzling them. “It’d have been preferable if there had been no argument, but on the other hand, lack of response on your part would have been read as a possible sign of involvement on our side. I assume
you
did it on purpose.”
“Not really, Herr Oberst.”
“Hm. Start looking into things, and locate the corpse. Over at the jail they’ll be busy about now doing some quick damage control, so that news of Tibyetsky’s death doesn’t leak out. You say you don’t believe the Russian workers were involved, but we don’t know for sure. In any case, little harm done: executions of civilians need no justification. As for the Soviets, they never will acknowledge their champion even crossed over.”
It was typical counterespionage pragmatism. Out of Bentivegni would come neither appreciation for Bora’s care in safely removing the defector and tank from the Donets, nor an acknowledgement that Khan might have had a better chance at Gehlen’s FHO camp or in Berlin.
For half a minute, maybe, the officers stood face to face in the windswept space without speaking. Pools of sunlight opened and closed on the runway. Far off, fighter planes from the home squadron, inside the hangars for maintenance, revved their engines, making the sound of giant hornets.
Looking into things
meant the risk of a collision course with the
Leibstandarte
and the RSHA. Bora listened to the angry sound from the hangars. What was it von Salomon had said about the captain in Zaporozhye who crowded flies in a jar until they fed on one another?
Under the cloth visor of the “standard cap”, Bentivegni’s big-boned face had a disillusioned serenity about it. “Close down the special detention centre, Major, before someone else does it for us. And send the men back to divisional headquarters for reassignment. Lost for lost, after they commandeered Khan Tibyetsky from us… You wouldn’t have taken any drastic
steps
of your own accord, would you?”
The suspicion was as offensive as when Mantau had first thrown it at him a few hours earlier. Bora did not blink an eye.
“Naturally no, Herr Oberst.”
“Not because he was your relative, you understand. I had to ask.” It was a natural segue for Bentivegni to say, “As things are, it was expedient that you insisted on pushing Platonov off
the edge. None of us at Headquarters expected to get a single word out of him.”
“I didn’t actually get a single word out of him,” Bora admitted, “but he did fill out a good portion of the questionnaire.”
“Did his women come?”
“They came.”
“Unless there’s something that can be got out of them – I leave it to your judgement, including the methods you might use – send them back quickly.”
“Yes, sir. Selina Platonova supposedly has a degree in electrical engineering. I’m having it checked out.”
Bentivegni nudged the knapsack at his feet with the side of his boot, just short of a moderate kick. “These Soviet women! They’re either engineers or physicians, or else they drive tractors. If it turns out she possesses useful knowledge, we’ll see that she’s employed where we need her skills. There’s also a daughter, isn’t there? Fine: both of them will be detained from now on. We can’t have them go out and tell the world their relative died in our hands.
Yes
, Major Bora. Well, you should have thought about it. Once they had been informed, their personal freedom was forfeited.”
In his anxiety to bring Platonov to collaborate, Bora had disregarded this possibility. Without showing it, he now felt sick. “It might be equally practical to send them to the Fatherland as labourers, Herr Oberst.”
“I’m surprised at your insistence. They’ll be detained.” Unhurriedly, Bentivegni’s glance migrated to the camera hanging from Bora’s neck. “I see you are still taking photographs,” he observed.
“Yes, sir.” Bora was hoping for a comment of some kind, but none was forthcoming.
“Tell the pilot to refuel quickly, Major. I leave within the hour.”
The rest of the day brought no improvement. It had all fallen into Bora’s hands after Bentivegni left the scene without
saying what steps he would take in Zossen, if any, giving him carte blanche here. It came down to a slight stress on words: “
Solve the problem
, Major, and
tidy up
afterwards.” Whatever Mantau’s prohibition, Bora did drive from the Aerodrome to west Kharkov, by the RSHA prison on Seminary Boulevard. From the corner of the church across the street, he saw the bodies of the two babushkas, hanging from the wrought-iron balcony of an old house nearby. They resembled bundles of rags from where he stood. How many times had he seen improvised gallows set up, ever since Poland? Hanging was commonplace; all units resorted to it. The merciful officers limited executions to what was necessary – because, more often than not, the Soviets didn’t take prisoners either. The two women, conscripted to empty slop buckets and clean floors, had gone by a tug of the rope beyond fear, mercy, anger, ideology. Beyond innocence and guilt. Envying them sounded excessive, but Bora suspected there were worse fates than hanging oblivious from iron bars.
He returned to Merefa at sundown after disbanding the crew of the special detention centre (they took Mina along) and returning the keys to divisional command – minus a set he kept for himself for future reference. The sentry and a frightened Kostya told him that panzer officers from
Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler
had stopped by and asked for the
povazhany Major
. Bora, who always took along maps, documents and other papers he wanted to keep private, grew steadily angrier and also very worried. They hadn’t gone as far as opening his trunk, but before leaving they’d used Kostya’s hens for target practice. There was chicken blood all over the school yard; Kostya was fighting back tears over his dead pets.
They could make his life very hard from now on; Bentivegni and District Commissioner Stark were both right in that. A measure of protection came from what Bora knew or could find out about his adversaries, or from selective collaboration. He meant to keep as a last resort the old boys’ network of
commanders who were his stepfather’s friends, from Generals Bock and Kesselring to Field Marshal Manstein.
9.32 p.m., Merefa.
Unpleasant day. The choice of a moderate adjective helps. Rereading my Russian entries, I see how on many occasions I merely wrote the letter A (for anguish) on certain days. There’s a point when remarking on things would be too much, and remaining silent far too little. How does this day fare, in the continuum from excellent to dismal? Unpleasant is a polite word my parents use at home for anything ranging from a flowerbed ruined by heavy rain to the Great War. And so, yes, it was an unpleasant day.
Gobbled some aspirin to keep the fever down, all the more since I’m looking to a series of less than pleasant days in the near future.
Colonel Bentivegni was as good as his word, and by noon he was heading back for Berlin, having as sole consolation prize a carbon copy of Platonov’s questionnaire and my notes on the irrelevant conversations I had with Khan–Uncle Terry. Poor Uncle Terry: what an inglorious end – and I do not yet know what exactly killed him, how, who is responsible and where his body might lie. Bentivegni doesn’t exclude a move by RSHA to deprive us of a first-rate coup that would have improved the
Abwehr
’s standing in the Führer’s eyes. The assassination would have been carried out against
Leibstandarte
’s interest in pumping a star tank commander all they could. But we do snarl at one another; we do crazily feed on one another.