FIFTY-ONE
–
“Surely you’re not leaving us, Max?”
Merten looked momentarily apologetic. “Yes, I’m sorry about that. But I was afraid you’d think me very foolish and cowardly if I told you exactly why I was running out on you like this.”
“Try me.”
“It’s what Goethe says, that’s all: Precaution is better than cure. When you mentioned Jaco Kapantzi’s murder in the car back there I realized that under Greek law I might easily be charged as an accessory before and after the fact. Because I was there, on the train, as you now know. And I did nothing to prevent Alo Brunner from shooting that poor devil. Not that there was anything I could have done, of course. He’d have killed me, too, if I’d interfered. When Alo’s blood is up, he’s a fucking Fury. By the time I knew he was going to do it, he’d done it, if you see what I mean. Yes, he always was a bit crazy that way. Quick with a gun, or to hand out a beating. So I’ve decided to take my chances and go it alone. Don’t think I’m not grateful to you for coming to fetch me off that island, Bernie. I am. There’s no telling what might happen if Alo ever does find me. The first time he showed up on the boat in Piraeus I thought he was going to shoot me then, only his appetite for a share of the gold held him back. But I don’t much like the idea of walking into a Greek police station with my pants down. Think about it. Just for a minute, if you will. If the Greek state prosecutor is prepared to charge a damned interpreter with war crimes, then what chance is there for a German army captain to whom that interpreter sometimes reported? What’s to stop Meissner from saying he was only obeying my orders? You see, Bernie, I remember Arthur Meissner very well. It was me who got him his houses in Athens and in Salonika. He’s guilty only of being a bit greedy. A bit of larceny. That’s not exactly a crime against humanity. Find me a Greek who hasn’t got his fucking hand in the till, then and now. But somehow I can’t see my evidence playing well in court. I can easily imagine myself in the dock instead of Meissner and I’m already thinking your cop’s idea of protection might amount to the same kind as once practiced by the Gestapo. A night in the cells that turns into something altogether more permanent. By the way, have you seen Greek prisons? They’re almost as bad as the fucking hotels. The Grande Bretagne excepted, but then that’s virtually the Adlon. No, it was a nice idea, Bernie, but I’m afraid it simply wouldn’t work. They’d make jam out of me.”
“All right, Max. It’s your funeral.”
“Don’t worry about me, I can look after myself. I speak pretty good Greek. And I’ve more than enough money to get home to Ithaca. We’ll see each other back in Munich, perhaps. I’ll buy you a dinner at the Hofbräuhaus and we’ll have a good laugh about this one day.”
“Maybe.”
“Sure we will. If you’re good I’ll even let you stroke the golden fleece.”
“Just out of interest, why did you call Elli a bitch?”
“For the simple reason that she is a bitch. At least as far as I’m concerned. You’re too blind with love to see it. Haven’t you noticed the way she looks at me? It’s very different from the way she looks at you, my friend. Very different. She despises me.”
“What did you expect? It’s not like you planned to build a Greek orphanage with that gold. You and Brunner stole it for yourselves. And bitch or not, you should be glad she came, Max. Without her I’m not sure my arm would have permitted me to drive down here to save your neck.”
“What a romantic fool you are, Bernie. They may have different faces, but all women are the same. I thought you’d understand that by now. For your sake, I hope she’s worth it.”
Ignoring him, I took the ticket for the Orient Express out of my pocket, still hoping that I could get him back in the car with friendly persuasion—that my giving him his ticket might convince him that I was on the level.
“I suppose you’ll be wanting this back.”
“Keep it. You use it. Now that I’ve thought about it some more, Istanbul might not be such a good idea for me. Italy probably suits me better. I can get a ferry to Brindisi from Corinth and then a train to Bari, where I know another good scuba diver. Fellow from the Decima Flottiglia MAS, who trained Siegfried Witzel as a matter of fact. Of course, he’s Italian, not German. But nobody’s perfect.”
I believed very little of this; it was clear that Merten didn’t trust me. I could see that in his eyes. And now that I looked at them more closely I could see that they resembled two old snails on the glass of a very green aquarium. Slow and slimy and inhuman. Not that I blamed him for not trusting me; anyone who’d double-crossed as many friends as Max Merten must have had a good nose for when he was about to be double-crossed himself. And if he was telling me he was bound for Brindisi and Bari then it was probably more likely he was going to try for the Orient Express after all. For a moment we stood there watching as Elli drove the car slowly toward us, smiling sheepishly at each other like two old friends now struck dumb by the uncomfortable realization that they weren’t friends at all, not anymore and probably never had been.
Which meant there was no longer any reason not to pull the gun out of my sling and shove the business end up against the fat covering his ribs. Merten regarded the gun as if it had been ink on his shirt.
“Is that my gun? It certainly looks like it.”
“Get in the car,” I said. Ignoring the pain in my arm, I opened the rear door of the Rover, shoved Merten onto the backseat, threw his valise after him, and jumped in alongside them both. As soon as the car door was closed, Elli hit the accelerator. The Rover twisted a little on the gravel before gaining grip and then speed. Merten sat up, sighed loudly, and stared at the gun and then at me with something like pity, as if I was a tiresome schoolboy.
“I was wondering when you’d reveal your true hand, Bernie,” he said. “And there it is. Holding a Bismarck on me. It’s very disappointing.”
“That’s good, coming from you,” I said. “I wonder if your left hand even knows what the right is doing sometimes.”
“Well, then, we have something in common, you and I. Double-crossers both. What’s the plan? Deliver me up to the Greek police and get your passport back?”
“Something like that.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re selling yourself a bit short, aren’t you? Just listen to yourself. A passport. If you’d thrown in with me you’d have been as rich as Croesus. Still could be, if you’d only listen to sense.”
“Your wealth comes at the kind of price I can’t afford to pay.”
“‘Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.’”
“You excepted, it would seem, Max.”
Merten snorted with contempt. “When did you start working for the war crimes office? Anyone would think you were a Jew yourself the way you keep mentioning them. Don’t be so gloomy, Bernie. For a German you’re very mixed up about all this. What do you care about the Greeks, or the Jews? Let them look after themselves. Me, I’m looking out for number one. Which reminds me, would you mind not pointing that thing at me? Greek roads aren’t the best. If your lady friend hits a pothole, you might shoot me, accidentally.”
“And if I did, you’d probably deserve it.”
“What would happen to your passport then?”
Merten took out his foul Egyptian cigarettes and lit one, before adopting a very serious expression.
“Listen to me carefully, Bernie,” he said gravely. “This foolishness can only end badly for us both. I can assure you that whatever moral high ground you think you’re standing on here is nothing but quicksand. I’m warning you, as an old friend. The way you once warned me, back in ’39. Let me go right now or you’ll regret it. And very much sooner than you think.”
“You seem to forget that I’m holding the gun, Max.”
“And you’re forgetting where you are. In the electric chair. With my hand on the switch. I can burn you to a stinking crisp in l
ess than a minute, my friend.”
“I don’t know what you think you’ve got on me, Max, but you’re bluffing. Those Jews from Salonika deserve some justice and I’m going to make sure that they get it.”
“Justice? Don’t make me laugh. Do you honestly think that the lives of sixty thousand Jews can be paid for so easily? Really, Bernie, you amaze me. Not just a romantic but an idealist, too. You’re full of surprises today. There’s no human justice that could ever be enough for what happened to those poor devils. And certainly none that could be got from my own humble person. So what you’re proposing is absurd. Besides, I had absolutely nothing to do with their deaths. I was just a paper pusher. A bureaucrat.”
“But you were prepared to profit from it.”
“I certainly didn’t hear the dead objecting to what I did. And they’ve certainly not troubled my conscience since. I told you. I can’t afford to have one. No, it’s Eichmann and Brunner who deserve to be on trial. Not me. I was just a humble army captain. Not even a footnote in history.”
“Perhaps. But you’ll have to do for now.”
“What a prig you are. What a prig and what a fool.” Merten puffed his cigarette coolly, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Be sensible. Last chance. Let me go, Bernie. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
“Just shut up and smoke your cigarette.”
“I tell you what I’m going to do,” he said calmly. “I’m going to smoke this cigarette to the end. And then, when it’s finished, if you haven’t stopped this car and let me go on my own merry way, you’ll be finished, too. You have my word on that.”
FIFTY-TWO
–
Max Merten threw his cigarette out the car window and then wound it up again. He was smiling like a chess grand master who was about to make a winning move; like his witless opponent, I still couldn’t see what this might be. But instead of saying anything, he stayed silent and closed his eyes for a long time and I supposed he must be asleep; when he opened them again we were only a few miles southwest of Athens.
“Almost there,” said Elli.
“Thanks for driving all this way,” I said. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Sweet of you,” she said. “I’m glad to be of help.”
“Well, isn’t that nice?” said Merten. “You know there are some men who find other people’s romances touching. Not me. When I see this kind of thing I wonder if the two parties involved really know the truth about each other. Speaking as a lawyer, I can tell you that truth has been the ruin of many a good romance. No relationship and certainly no marriage can take too much of that. Mine couldn’t.”
“Whatever you think you know,” said Elli, “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Let me tell you something about this sweet man seated behind you, Elisabeth,” he said softly.
“Don’t bother treating me like a jury. I’m a lawyer myself and I know all a lawyer’s tricks.”
“Oh, it’s no bother.”
“As far as I can see, Mr. Merten, you have only one advantage over me and it’s that you never had to endure a car journey with Max Merten.”
“I know the real Bernie Gunther. That’s one advantage.”
“The number of times I’ve heard people say they know the real me and what they actually knew was just the me they imagined I was. The longer I live the more I realize that no one knows anyone. So do yourself a favor and save your very unpleasant breath.”
“But you do like him, don’t you?”
“Are you looking for an answer or an explanation?”
“An answer.”
“Yes. I like him.”
“Why?”
“Now you want an explanation. And I’m not obliged to give you one. Not obliged and certainly not inclined.”
“I’ve known this man for almost twenty years, Elisabeth. A man whose reputation around police headquarters in Berlin went before him during the thirties. For a lot of younger and impressionable men like myself Bernie Gunther wasn’t just a successful detective, he was also something of a local hero.”
“I distinctly remember telling you I wasn’t interested in anything you had to say.”
“You heard the lady, Max. Why don’t you give it a rest?”
“Famously Bernie caught Gormann the strangler, a man who murdered many aspiring young film actresses. When were those Kuhlo murders—1929? I’m not sure about that. But I think it was probably 1931 when Bernie joined the Nazi Party and became the Party’s liaison officer in the Criminal Police, because it was definitely the following year when he helped to form the National Socialist Civil Service Society of the Berlin Police. Which means he was a die-hard Nazi even before Hitler came to power.”
“You know I was never a Nazi. Not even in my worst nightmare.”
“Oh, come on, Bernie. Don’t be so bashful. Let me tell you, Elisabeth, this man was one of the first in the police department who had the courage to declare his hand, politically. And because he did, many others followed. Me included, although to be quite frank I only did it to advance my career; unlike Bernie I really wasn’t much interested in politics and certainly not in persecuting Jews and communists. I’m not sure what he thinks about Jews but I’m quite sure Bernie hates the communists. Then, in the autumn of 1938, your friend here caught the eye of Heinrich Himmler’s number two, Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich was a slippery sort—”
“Almost as slippery as you, Max. You could spread this stuff on a field and it would grow two crops a year.”
“—the very embodiment of fascist evil and the architect of many atrocities, which is why later on they called him the Butcher of Prague. To be fair to Bernie I expect Heydrich saw someone he could use, the way he used many others. But it was Heydrich who promoted Bernie to the rank of commissar and until Heydrich’s death, Bernie was his number-one troubleshooter; the joke around headquarters was that when Bernie saw trouble he usually shot it.”
As Merten laughed at his own joke I lifted my injured arm, grabbed him by the tie and twisted it, the way he was twisting the truth, but not enough to silence him.
“I’m beginning to see why Alo Brunner is so keen to kill you, Max. With a mouth like yours it’s a wonder how you managed to stay alive for this long.”
Still talking quickly, Merten retreated along the leather seat, pressing himself into the corner.
“For example, in November 1938 it was rumored he murdered a doctor by the name of Lanz Kindermann, because he was homosexual. The Nazis never liked homos all that much and Bernie was certainly no exception. But by then he was exceptional in one respect and that was in the amount of license he seemed to enjoy from his pale-faced master, Heydrich, and so his crime went unpunished, as most real crimes did by then. The following year—a few months before war broke out—Bernie was even invited to Obersalzberg, to stay at Hitler’s country house, the Berghof. It was Hitler’s fiftieth birthday and a singular honor for anyone to be invited, let me tell you. Not many people could say as much unless they were very highly thought of. No one ever asked me there for the weekend.” Merten chuckled. “Isn’t that right, Bernie? You were the leader’s houseguest, weren’t you? Tell her.”
For a brief moment I considered trying to explain the real reason I’d been at the Berghof—to investigate a murder—but almost immediately I could see the futility of doing so. There was no way my being there could ever have been satisfactorily explained. So I did what any man would do when confronted with another’s man barefaced lie. I laughed it off and lied straight back.
“Of course I wasn’t there. It’s absurd even to suggest such a thing. I have to hand it to you, Max. You must be quite a good trial lawyer. Next thing you’ll be trying to persuade her that Hitler was my long-lost uncle.”
Elli laughed. “Don’t give him any ideas.”
“The story is actually just getting started. A couple o
f years later, in 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, many of Berlin’s senior policemen were drafted into the SD, which was the intelligence agency of the SS, and that’s how Bernie here came to be an SD captain in uniform, just like Alo Brunner. Tell me, old man, which part of that isn’t true?”
“Shut up, Max. Shut up. I swear I’m going to crack you one with this gun if I have to listen to any more of this.”
I caught Elli’s eye in her rearview mirror; what I saw didn’t worry me that much. She was shaking her head as if she didn’t believe him.
“I can see exactly what he’s up to,” she said. “He’s a rat and like any rat he’ll squeak when he’s cornered.”
“Some rats need extermination,” I said, and pressed the muzzle of the Walther up against Merten’s cheek.
“Go ahead and shoot,” said Merten. “Do it. Put a bullet in my head. That’s what you’re good at, old man. You’ve had plenty of practice, after all. Better dead than doing life in a Greek jail.”
“I’m not going to shoot you, Max. But people can lose gold teeth for this kind of thing.”
“You mean for telling the truth? Surely this nice Greek girl deserves to know just what kind of man you really are.”
“Your version hasn’t got much to do with truth, Max.”
“It’s a long time since I was scared by a fairy story,” said Elli. “Especially one told by some fat old Nazi.”
“Hey, less with the old,” said Merten. “I may be putting on the pounds but I’m more than a decade younger than your friend here. Maybe you can convince her that you were a good German, Bernie, but I know better. Have you still got that SS tattoo under your arm or did you burn it off? What did you tell her it was? An old war wound?” Merten laughed.
“Light me a cigarette will you, Bernie?” she said.