A LFONSO RAMIREZ SHOULD have been dead long ago. He was, without a doubt, one of the most courageous men in Argentina and all of Latin America. A crusading journalist and writer, he had made it his life’s work to chip away at the walls surrounding Argentina and its murderous past. Considered too controversial and dangerous to be employed by Argentine publications, he published most of his work in the United States and Europe. Few Argentines, beyond the political and financial elite, ever read a word Ramirez wrote.
He had experienced Argentine brutality firsthand. During the Dirty War, his opposition to the military junta had landed him in jail, where he spent nine months and was nearly tortured to death. His wife, a left-wing political activist, was kidnapped by a military death squad and thrown alive from an airplane into the freezing waters of the South Atlantic. Were it not for the intervention of Amnesty International, Ramirez would certainly have suffered the same fate. Instead, he was released, shattered and nearly unrecognizable, to resume his crusade against the generals. In 1983, they stepped aside, and a democratically elected civilian government took their place. Ramirez helped prod the new government into putting dozens of army officers on trial for crimes committed during the Dirty War. Among them was the captain who’d thrown Alfonso Ramirez’s wife into the sea.
In recent years, Ramirez had devoted his considerable skills to exposing another unpleasant chapter of Argentine history that the government, the press, and most of its citizenry had chosen to ignore. Following the collapse of Hitler’s Reich, thousands of war criminals—German, French, Belgian, and Croatian—had streamed into Argentina, with the enthusiastic approval of the Perón government and the tireless assistance of the Vatican. Ramirez was despised in Argentine quarters where the influence of the Nazis still ran deep, and his work had proven to be just as hazardous as investigating the generals. Twice his office had been firebombed, and his mail contained so many letter bombs that the postal service refused to handle it. Were it not for Moshe Rivlin’s introduction, Gabriel doubted Ramirez would have agreed to meet with him.
As it turned out, Ramirez readily accepted an invitation to lunch and suggested a neighborhood café in San Telmo. The café had a black-and-white checkerboard floor with square wooden tables arranged in no discernible pattern. The walls were whitewashed and fitted with shelves lined with empty wine bottles. Large doors opened onto the noisy street, and there were tables on the pavement beneath a canvas awning. Three ceiling fans stirred the heavy air. A German shepherd lay at the foot of the bar, panting. Gabriel arrived on time at two-thirty. The Argentine was late.
January is high summer in Argentina, and it was unbearably hot. Gabriel, who’d been raised in the Jezreel Valley and spent summers in Venice, was used to heat, but only a few days removed from the Austrian Alps, the contrast in climate took his body by surprise. Waves of heat rose from the traffic and flowed through the open doors of the café. With each passing truck, the temperature seemed to rise a degree or two. Gabriel kept his sunglasses on. His shirt was plastered to his spinal cord.
He drank cold water and chewed on a lemon rind, looking into the street. His gaze settled briefly on Chiara. She was sipping a Campari and soda and nibbling listlessly at a plate of empanada. She wore short pants. Her long legs stretched into the sunlight, and her thighs were beginning to burn. Her hair was twisted into a haphazard bun. A trickle of perspiration was inching its way down the nape of her neck, into her sleeveless blouse. Her wristwatch was on her left hand. It was a prearranged signal. Left hand meant that she had detected no surveillance, though Gabriel knew that even an agent of Chiara’s skill would be hard-pressed to find a professional in the midday crowds of San Telmo.
Ramirez didn’t arrive until three. He made no apology for being late. He was a large man, with thick forearms and a dark beard. Gabriel looked for the scars of torture but found none. His voice, when he ordered two steaks and a bottle of red wine, was affable and so loud it seemed to rattle the bottles on the shelves. Gabriel wondered whether steak and red wine was a wise choice, given the intense heat. Ramirez looked as though he found the question deeply scandalous. “Beef is the one thing about this country that’s true,” he said. “Besides, the way the economy is going—” The rest of his remark was drowned out by the rumble of a passing cement truck.
The waiter placed the wine on the table. It came in a green bottle with no label. Ramirez poured two glasses and asked Gabriel the name of the man he was looking for. Hearing the answer, the Argentine’s dark eyebrows furrowed in concentration.
“Otto Krebs, eh? Is that his real name, or an alias?”
“An alias.”
“How can you be sure?”
Gabriel handed over the documents he’d taken from the Santa Maria dell’Anima in Rome. Ramirez pulled a pair of greasy reading glasses from his shirt pocket and thrust them onto his face. Having the documents out in plain sight made Gabriel nervous. He cast a glance in Chiara’s direction. The wristwatch was still on her left hand. Ramirez, when he looked up from the papers, was clearly impressed.
“How did you get access to the papers of Bishop Hudal?”
“I have a friend at the Vatican.”
“No, you have a very powerful friend at the Vatican. The only man who could get Bishop Drexler to willingly open Hudal’s papers is il papa himself!” Ramirez raised his wineglass in Gabriel’s direction. “So, in 1948, an SS officer named Erich Radek comes to Rome and staggers into the arms of Bishop Hudal. A few months later, he leaves Rome as Otto Krebs and sets sail for Syria. What else do you know?”
The next document Gabriel laid on the wooden tabletop produced a similar look of astonishment from the Argentine journalist.
“As you can see, Israeli intelligence placed the man now known as Otto Krebs in Damascus as late as 1963. The source is very good, none other than Aloïs Brunner. According to Brunner, Krebs left Syria in 1963 and came here.”
“And you have reason to believe he still might be here?”
“That’s what I need to find out.”
Ramirez folded his heavy arms and eyed Gabriel across the table. A silence fell between them, filled by the hot drone of traffic from the street. The Argentine smelled a story. Gabriel had anticipated this.
“So how does a man named René Duran from Montreal get his hands on secret documents from the Vatican and the Israeli intelligence service?”
“Obviously, I have good sources.”
“I’m a very busy man, Monsieur Duran.”
“If it’s money you want—”
The Argentine held up his palm in an admonitory gesture.
“I don’t want your money, Monsieur Duran. I can make my own money. What I want is the story.”
“Obviously, press coverage of my investigation would be something of a hindrance.”
Ramirez looked insulted. “Monsieur Duran, I’m confident I have much more experience pursuing men like Erich Radek than you do. I know when to investigate quietly and when to write.”
Gabriel hesitated a moment. He was reluctant to enter into a quid pro quo with the Argentine journalist, but he also knew that Alfonso Ramirez might prove to be a valuable friend.
“Where do we start?” Gabriel asked.
“Well, I suppose we should find out whether Aloïs Brunner was telling the truth about his friend Otto Krebs.”
“Meaning, did he ever come to Argentina?”
“Exactly.”
“And how do we do that?”
Just then the waiter appeared. The steak he placed in front of Gabriel was large enough to feed a family of four. Ramirez smiled and started sawing away.
“Bon appétit, Monsieur Duran. Eat! Something tells me you’re going to need your strength.”
ALFONSO RAMIREZ DROVE the last surviving Volkswagen Sirocco in the western hemisphere. It might have been dark blue once; now the exterior had faded to the color of pumice. The windshield had a crack down the center that looked like a bolt of lightning. Gabriel’s door was bashed in, and it requ
ired much of his depleted reservoir of strength to pry it open. The air conditioner no longer worked, and the engine roared like a prop plane.
They sped along the broad Avenida 9 de Julio with the windows down. Scraps of notepaper swirled around them. Ramirez seemed not to notice, or to care, when several pages were sucked out into the street. It had grown hotter with the late afternoon. The rough wine had left Gabriel with a headache. He turned his face toward the open window. It was an ugly boulevard. The façades of the graceful old buildings were scarred by an endless parade of billboards hawking German luxury cars and American soft drinks to a populace whose money was suddenly worthless. The limbs of the shade trees hung drunkenly beneath the onslaught of pollution and heat.
They turned toward the river. Ramirez looked into the rearview mirror. A life of being pursued by military thugs and Nazi sympathizers had left him with well-honed street instincts.
“We’re being followed by a girl on a motor scooter.”
“Yes, I know.”
“If you knew, why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because she works for me.”
Ramirez took a long look into the mirror.
“I recognize those thighs. That girl was at the café, wasn’t she?”
Gabriel nodded slowly. His head was pounding.
“You’re a very interesting man, Monsieur Duran. And very lucky, too. She’s beautiful.”
“Just concentrate on your driving, Alfonso. She’ll watch your back.”
Five minutes later, Ramirez parked on a street running along the edge of the harbor. Chiara sped past, then swung round and parked in the shade of a tree. Ramirez killed the engine. The sun beat mercilessly on the roof. Gabriel wanted out of the car, but the Argentine wanted to brief him first.
“Most of the files dealing with Nazis in Argentina are kept under lock and key in the Information Bureau. They’re still officially off-limits to reporters and scholars, even though the traditional thirty-year blackout period expired long ago. Even if we could get into the storerooms of the Information Bureau, we probably wouldn’t find much. By all accounts, Perón had the most damaging files destroyed in 1955, when he was run out of office in a coup.”
On the other side of the street, a car slowed, and the man behind the wheel took a long look at the girl on the motorbike. Ramirez saw it, too. He watched the car in his rearview mirror for a moment before resuming.
“In 1997, the government created the Commission for the Clarification of Nazi Activities in Argentina. It faced a serious problem from the beginning. You see, in 1996, the government burned all the damaging files still in its possession.”
“Why create a commission in the first place?”
“They wanted credit for trying, of course. But in Argentina, the search for the truth can only go so far. A real investigation would have demonstrated the true depth of Perón’s complicity in the postwar Nazi exodus from Europe. It would also have revealed the fact that many Nazis continue to live here. Who knows? Maybe your man, too.”
Gabriel pointed at the building. “So what’s this?”
“The Hotel de Immigrantes, first stop for the millions of immigrants who came to Argentina in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The government housed them here, until they could find work and a place to live. Now, the Immigration Office uses the building as a storage facility.”
“For what?”
Ramirez opened the glove box and removed rubber surgical gloves and paper sterile masks. “It’s not the cleanest place in the world. I hope you’re not afraid of rats.”
Gabriel lifted the latch and threw his shoulder against the door. Across the street, Chiara killed the engine of her motorbike and settled in for the wait.
A BORED POLICEMAN stood watch at the entrance. A girl in uniform sat before a rotating fan at the registrar’s desk, reading a fashion magazine. She slid the logbook across the dusty desk. Ramirez signed and added the time. Two laminated tags with alligator clips appeared. Gabriel was No. 165. He affixed the badge to the top of his shirt pocket and followed Ramirez toward the elevator. “Two hours till closing time,” the girl called out, then she turned another page of her magazine.
They boarded a freight elevator. Ramirez pulled the screen shut and pressed the button for the top floor. The elevator swayed slowly upward. A moment later, when they shuddered to a stop, the air was so hot and thick with dust it was difficult to breathe. Ramirez pulled on his gloves and mask. Gabriel followed suit.
The space they entered was roughly two city blocks long, and filled with endless ranks of steel shelves sagging beneath the weight of wooden crates. Gulls were flying in and out of the broken windows. Gabriel could hear the scratching of tiny clawed feet and the mewing of a catfight. The smell of dust and decaying paper seeped through the protective mask. The subterranean archive of the Anima in Rome seemed a paradise compared to this squalid place.
“What are these?”
“The things Perón and his spiritual successors in the Menem government didn’t think to destroy. This room contains the immigration cards filled out by every passenger who disembarked at the Port of Buenos Aires from the 1920s to the 1970s. One floor down are the passenger manifests from every ship. Mengele, Eichmann, they all left their fingerprints here. Maybe Otto Krebs, too.”
“Why is it such a mess?”
“Believe it or not, it used to be worse. A few years ago, a brave soul named Chela alphabetized the cards year by year. They call this the Chela room now. The immigration cards for 1963 are over here. Follow me.” Ramirez paused and pointed toward the floor. “Watch out for the catshit.”
They walked half a city block. The immigration cards for 1963 filled several dozen of the steel shelves. Ramirez located the wooden boxes containing cards with passengers whose last name began with K, then he removed them from the shelf and placed them carefully on the floor. He found four immigrants with the last name Krebs. None had the first name Otto.
“Could it be misfiled?”
“Of course.”
“Is it possible someone removed it?”
“This is Argentina, my friend. Anything is possible.”
Gabriel leaned against the shelves, dejected. Ramirez returned the immigration cards to the box, and the box to its place on the steel shelf. Then he looked at his watch.
“We have an hour and forty-five minutes till they close up for the night. You work forward from 1963, I’ll work backward. Loser buys the drinks.”
A THUNDERSTORM MOVED down from the river. Gabriel, through a broken window, glimpsed heat lightning flickering amid the cranes of the waterfront. The heavy cloud blocked out the late-day sun. Inside the Chela room it became nearly impossible to see. The rain began like an explosion. It swept through the gaping windows and soaked the precious files. Gabriel, the restorer, pictured running ink, images forever lost.
He found the immigration cards of three more men named Krebs, one in 1965, two more in 1969. None bore the first name Otto. The darkness slowed the pace of his search to a crawl. In order to read the immigration cards, he had to lug the boxes near a window, where there was still some light. There he would crouch, his back to the rain, fingers working.
The girl from the registrar’s desk wandered up and gave them a ten-minute warning. Gabriel had only searched through 1972. He didn’t want to come back tomorrow. He quickened his pace.
The storm ceased as suddenly as it began. The air was cooler and washed clean. It was quiet, except for the sound of rainwater gurgling in the gutters. Gabriel kept searching: 1973 . . . 1974 . . . 1975 . . . 1976. . . . No more passengers named Krebs. Nothing.
The girl returned, this time to chase them out for the night. Gabriel carried his last crate back to the shelf, where he found Ramirez and the girl chatting away in Spanish.
“Anything?” Gabriel asked.
Ramirez shook his head.
“How far did you get?”
“All the way. You?”
Gabriel told him. “Think it?
??s worth coming back tomorrow?”
“Probably not.” He put his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Come on, I’ll buy you a beer.”
The girl collected their laminated badges and accompanied them down in the freight elevator. The windows of the Sirocco had been left open. Gabriel, depressed by failure, sat on the sodden car seat. The thunderous roar of the engine shattered the quiet of the street. Chiara followed as they drove away. Her clothing was drenched from the rain.
Two blocks from the archives, Ramirez reached into his shirt pocket and produced an immigration card. “Cheer up, Monsieur Duran,” he said, handing the card to Gabriel. “Sometimes, in Argentina, it pays to use the same underhanded tactics as the men in charge. There’s only one copier in that building, and the girl runs it. She would have made one copy for me and another for her superior.”
“And Otto Krebs, if he’s still in Argentina and still alive, might very well have been told we were looking for him.”
“Exactly.”
Gabriel held up the card. “Where was it?”
“Nineteen forty-nine. I suppose Chela stuck one in the wrong box.”
Gabriel looked down and began to read. Otto Krebs arrived in Buenos Aires in December 1963 on a boat bound from Athens. Ramirez pointed to a number written in hand at the bottom: 245276/62.
“That’s the number of his landing permit. It was probably issued by the Argentine consulate in Damascus. The ‘sixty-two’ at the end of the line is the year the permit was granted.”
“Now what?”
“We know he arrived in Argentina.” Ramirez shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Let’s see if we can find him.”
THEY DROVE BACK to San Telmo through the wet streets and parked outside an Italianate apartment house. Like many buildings in Buenos Aires, it had been beautiful once. Now its façade was the color of Ramirez’s car and streaked by pollution.
They climbed a flight of dimly lit stairs. The air inside the flat was stale and warm. Ramirez locked the door behind them and threw open the windows to the cool evening. Gabriel looked into the street and saw Chiara parked on the opposite side.