‘Well, it’s good that we can make something right,’ I said. ‘Makes me feel really proud.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ he said. ‘I can’t understand why they haven’t gone off yet.’
Someone pushed at the lavatory door and I opened it just a crack. It was Wetzel again, his long hooked nose and thin moustache looking very ratlike through the gap in the door.
‘Is everything all right, Captain Gunther?’ he asked.
‘Better find another one,’ I told him. ‘The colonel’s being sick, I’m afraid.’
‘Do you want me to have someone fetch a mop and a bucket?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s no need for that. Look, it’s kind of you to offer your help but the colonel is a bit of a mess, so it might be best if you left us alone for a minute, all right?’
Wetzel glanced over my shoulder as if he didn’t quite believe my story.
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’
He nodded and went away, and I looked anxiously around to see Von Gersdorff carefully withdrawing the fuses from one of the mines.
‘It’ll be me throwing up if you don’t hurry up and defuse those things,’ I said. ‘That fucking Gestapo captain is going to come back any minute. I just know he is.’
‘I still don’t understand why the leader left so quickly,’ said Von Gersdorff. ‘I was about to show him Napoleon’s hat. Left behind in his coach after Waterloo and recovered by Prussian soldiers.’
‘Napoleon was defeated. Perhaps he doesn’t like to be reminded of that. Especially now we’re doing so well in Russia.’
‘Yes, perhaps. Nor do I really understand why you’re helping me.’
‘Let’s just say I hate to see a brave man blow himself up just because he’s dumb enough to forget he’s got a bomb in his pocket. How’s it coming along?’
‘Are you nervous?’
‘Whatever gave you that idea? I always get a kick out of being near explosives that are about to go off. But next time I’ll be sure to wear some armour plating underneath my coat and some earplugs.’
‘I’m not that brave, you know,’ he said. ‘But since my wife died, last year—’
Von Gersdorff removed the second fuse and dropped the two mercury sticks into the lavatory.
‘Are they safe?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said, pocketing the two mines again. ‘And thank you. I don’t know what came over me. I suppose I must have just frozen – like a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that’s certainly what it looked like.’
He came to attention immediately in front of me, clicked his heels and bowed his head.
‘Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff,’ he said. ‘At your service, captain. Whom do I have the honour of thanking?’
‘No.’ I smiled and shook my head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘I don’t understand. I should like to know your name, captain. And then I should like to take you to my club and buy us both a drink. To calm our nerves. It’s just around the corner.’
‘That’s kind of you, Colonel von Gersdorff. But perhaps it’s best you don’t know who I am. Just in case the Gestapo should ask you for a list of all the people who helped you organize this little disaster. Besides, it’s hardly the kind of name that someone like you would ever remember.’
Von Gersdorff straightened perceptibly, as if I had suggested he was a Bolshevik. ‘Are you suggesting that I would ever betray the names of brother officers? Of German patriots?’
‘Believe me, everyone has his limit where the Gestapo is concerned.’
‘That would not be the conduct of an officer and a gentleman.’
‘Of course it wouldn’t. And that’s why the Gestapo don’t employ officers and gentlemen. They employ sadistic thugs who can break a man as easily as one of those mercury sticks of yours.’
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’
Von Gersdorff walked stiffly toward the lavatory door like a man – or more accurately an aristocrat – who had been grossly insulted by a common little captain.
‘Wait a minute, colonel,’ I said. ‘There’s a particularly nosy Gestapo officer outside that door who believes you came in here to throw up. At least, I hope he does. I’m afraid it was the only story I could think of in the circumstances.’ I ran the tap to fill one of the basins. ‘Like I say, he’s a suspicious bastard and he already smells a rat, so we’d better make my story look a little more convincing, don’t you think? Come here.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Save your life, I hope.’ I scooped some water into my hands and threw it into the front of his tunic. ‘And mine, perhaps. Here, hold still.’
‘Hang on. This is my dress uniform.’
‘I don’t for a minute doubt your courage, colonel, but I happen to know this is your second failure within as many weeks, so I am not confident that you or any of the people working with you really know what the hell you’re doing. You and your posh friends seem to lack all of the lethal qualities that are necessary to be assassins. Let’s just leave it there, shall we? No names, no thank yous, no explanations, just goodbye.’
I threw some more water onto the front of Von Gersdorff, and hearing the door open, I just had time to haul the towel off the roller and to start mopping down his front. I turned to see Wetzel standing in the room. The smile on his rodent’s face looked anything but friendly.
‘Is everything all right?’ he said.
‘I told you it was, didn’t I?’ I said, irritably. ‘Jesus Christ.’
‘Yes you did, but—’
‘I didn’t flush the lavatory,’ murmured Von Gersdorff. ‘Those sticks are still in there.’
‘Shut up and let me do the talking,’ I said.
Von Gersdorff nodded.
‘What’s got into you, Wetzel?’ I said. ‘Damn it all, can’t you take a fucking hint? I said I was handling it.’
‘I have the distinct impression that there’s something not quite right in here,’ said Wetzel.
‘I didn’t know you were a plumber. But go ahead. Be my guest. Now you’re here, see if you can unblock the toilet.’ I threw the towel aside, gave the colonel a quick up and down and then nodded. ‘There you go, sir. A little damp, perhaps, but you’ll do.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Von Gersdorff.
‘That’s all right. Could happen to anyone.’
Wetzel wasn’t the type to back away from an insult; he picked up a clothes-brush and tossed it to me. I caught it, too.
‘Why don’t you brush him down while you’re at it?’ said Wetzel. ‘A new career as a gentleman’s valet or a lavatory attendant would seem appropriate in the circumstances.’
‘Thanks.’ I fussed at the colonel’s shoulders for a few seconds and then put down the brush. It was probably a safer although rather less pleasurable option than trying to shove it up Wetzel’s rectum.
Wetzel sniffed the air, loudly. ‘It certainly doesn’t smell like someone has been ill in here,’ he said. ‘Why is that, I wonder?’
I laughed.
‘Did I say something funny, Captain Gunther?’
‘The things the Gestapo will try and pinch you for these days.’ I nodded at the six cubicles next to us. ‘Why don’t you check that the colonel here flushed the toilet while you’re at it, Wetzel?’
There was a bottle of lime water on the shelf behind the basins. I picked it up, pulled out the cork, and splashed some on to the colonel’s hands. He rubbed them on his cheeks.
‘I’m all right now, Captain Gunther,’ he said. ‘Thank you for your assistance. It was most kind of you. I shan’t forget this. I really thought I was about to faint back there.’
Wetzel glanced behind the door of the first cubicle.
I laughed again. ‘Find anything, Wetzel? A Jew on the wing, perhaps?’
‘We have an old saying in the Gestapo, captain,’ said Wetzel. ‘A simple search is always better
than suspicion.’
He stepped into the second cubicle.
‘It’s the last one,’ murmured Von Gersdorff.
I nodded.
‘The way you say that, Wetzel, it sounds homespun, almost friendly,’ I said.
‘The Gestapo is not unfriendly,’ said Wetzel. ‘So long as someone’s not an enemy of the state.’
He came out of the second cubicle and went into the third.
‘Well there are none of those in here,’ I said brightly. ‘In case you didn’t notice, the colonel was about to guide the leader around the exhibition. They don’t let just anyone do that, I expect.’
‘And how is it that you two are friends, captain?’
‘Not that it’s any of your damn business, but I’ve just got back from Army Group Centre in Smolensk,’ I said. ‘That’s where the colonel is stationed. We were on the same plane back to Berlin. Isn’t that right, colonel?’
‘Yes,’ said Von Gersdorff. ‘All of the exhibits for today’s display were collected by Army Group Centre. The enormous honour of being the leader’s guide this morning fell to me, I’m happy to say. However I think I must have picked up some sort of bacillus while I was down there. I just hope that the leader doesn’t get it.’
‘Please God he doesn’t,’ I said.
Wetzel stepped into the fourth cubicle. I saw him glance into the toilet bowl. If he did the same in the sixth and last cubicle he would surely see the two mercury sticks and we would be arrested, and that would be the end of us. It was whispered around the Alex that Georg Elser – the Munich bomber of August 1939 – had been tortured by Heinrich Himmler, in person, following his unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the leader; the rumour was that Himmler had almost kicked the man to death. It was anyone’s guess what had happened to him since then, but the same rumour said he had been starved to death in Sachsenhausen. About assassins the Nazis were never anything less than vengeful and vindictive.
‘Is that why he left so abruptly, do you think?’ I asked. ‘Because he could see that you were ill and didn’t want to catch it himself?’
‘Perhaps.’ Von Gersdorff closed his eyes and nodded, catching on at last. ‘I think it might have been, yes.’
‘I can’t say I blame him,’ I said. ‘There was typhoid around Smolensk when we left. In Vitebsk, wasn’t it? Where all those Jews died?’
‘That’s what I told the leader,’ said Von Gersdorff. ‘When he visited our headquarters in Smolensk last weekend.’
‘Typhoid?’ Wetzel frowned.
‘I don’t think I have typhoid,’ said Von Gersdorff. ‘At least, I hope not.’ He clutched his stomach. ‘However. I do feel rather ill again. If you’ll excuse me gentlemen, I’m afraid I am going to throw up once more.’
The colonel moved away from me and presented himself immediately in front of the Gestapo captain, who recoiled noticeably as, for a brief moment, Von Gersdorff placed a hand on his shoulder before launching himself into the last cubicle. He closed and then locked the door hurriedly behind him. There was a short pause and then we heard the sound of him retching loudly. I had to hand it to the colonel. He was a hell of an actor. By now I was almost convinced myself that he was ill.
Wetzel and I faced each other with obvious dislike.
‘There’s nothing personal in this. The fact I don’t like you, Captain Gunther, has nothing to do with what I’m doing here.’
‘Make sure you flush that machine pistol, colonel,’ I said loudly, through the door. ‘And while you’re at it, those two bombs in your pockets.’
‘I’m just doing my job, captain,’ said Wetzel. ‘That’s all. I’m just trying to make sure that everything is in order.’
‘Sure you are,’ I said, pleasantly. ‘But in case you didn’t notice, the cat’s already been swept down river. I don’t doubt the leader would be most impressed with your efforts to ensure his safety, Captain Wetzel, but he’s gone – back to the Reich chancellery and a nice lunch, I’ll be bound.’
Von Gersdorff retched again.
I went over to the basin and started to wash my hands furiously.
‘I forget,’ I said. ‘Is typhoid caught in the air or do you have to eat something that’s been contaminated?’
For a moment Captain Wetzel hesitated. Then he quickly washed his hands. I handed him the towel. Wetzel started to dry his hands, remembered that I’d used the towel to purportedly wipe the vomit off the colonel’s tunic, and dropped it abruptly on the floor; then he turned and left.
I let out a breath, leaned against the wall, and lit a cigarette.
‘He’s gone,’ I announced. ‘You can come out now.’ I took a deep drag of smoke and shook my head. ‘I’m impressed with the way you kept up with all that puking. It sounded very convincing. I think you’d have made quite an actor, colonel.’
The cubicle door opened slowly to reveal a very pale-looking Von Gersdorff.
‘I’m afraid it wasn’t an act,’ he said. ‘What with the bombs and that fucking Gestapo captain, my nerves are shot to pieces.’
‘Perfectly understandable,’ I said. ‘It’s not every day that you try to blow yourself up. That sort of thing takes guts.’
‘It’s not every day you fail, either,’ he said bitterly. ‘Another ten minutes and Adolf Hitler would have been dead.’
I gave him a cigarette and lit it with the butt of my own.
‘Got any family?’
‘A daughter.’
‘Then don’t be so hard on yourself. Think of her. We might still have Hitler, but she still has you, and that’s what’s important right now.’
‘Thank you.’ For a moment Von Gersdorff’s eyes filled up; then he nodded and wiped them quickly with the back of his hand. ‘I wonder why he did leave so abruptly.’
‘You ask me? The man isn’t human at all. Either that or he got a sniff of that cologne you were wearing before I splashed that lime water on your hands. It was horrible.’
Von Gersdorff smiled.
‘You know what?’ I said. ‘I think we need that drink after all. You mentioned a club? Around the corner?’
‘I thought you wanted to keep fools like me at arm’s length.’
‘That was before that stupid captain opened his mouth and told you my name,’ I said. ‘And what better company for one fool than another?’
‘Is that what we are? Fools?’
‘Certainly. But at least we know we’re fools. And in today’s Germany that counts as a kind of wisdom.’
*
We went to the German Club – formerly the Herrenclub – at number two Jäger Strasse, which was a red sandstone neo-baroque hatchery for anyone with a von in his name, and the kind of place where you felt improperly dressed without a red stripe on your trouser leg and a Knight’s Cross around your neck. I’d been there once before, but only because I’d mistaken the place for Nero’s golden palace and they’d mistaken me for the mailman. Naturally women were not allowed. It was bad enough for the members to see the witchcraft badge on my tunic in there; if they had seen a female in that place someone would probably have fetched a red-hot stool.
Gersdorff ordered a bottle of Prince Bismarck. They shouldn’t have had any, but of course they did because it was the German Club and the seventy-seven princes and thirty-eight German counts who were among the members might have wondered what things were coming to when you couldn’t get a decent bottle of schnapps. I dare say that August Nöthling wasn’t the only shopkeeper in Berlin who knew how to get around the country’s strict rationing. We drank it neat, cold and quickly, with quiet patriotic toasts that someone eavesdropping on our conversation might have considered treasonable, and it was fortunate that we were in the bowling alley, which was empty.
After a while we were both a little drunk and bowled a few, which was when I informed Von Gersdorff of one aspect to the plot to kill Hitler I found repellent.
‘Something’s been nagging me ever since I got back from Smolensk,’ I said.
‘Oh? And what’s t
hat?’
‘I don’t mind you trying to blow Hitler up,’ I said. ‘But I do mind about the two telephonists in Smolensk who had their throats cut because they overheard something they shouldn’t have.’
Von Gersdorff stopped bowling and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said. ‘When did this happen?’
‘In the early hours of Sunday March 14th,’ I said. ‘The day immediately after the leader visited Smolensk. Two telephonists from the 537th were found murdered on the banks of the Dnieper River near a brothel called the Hotel Glinka. I was the investigating officer. Unofficially, anyway.’
‘Really, I know nothing about this,’ he insisted. ‘And I can assure you, Captain Gunther, that there is no one at Army Group HQ who would commit such a crime. Or indeed order such a crime to be carried out.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Of course I’m sure. These are officers and gentlemen we’re talking about.’ He lit a cigarette and shook his head. ‘But, look, this sounds much more like partisans. What makes you so sure it wasn’t some damned Popov who murdered them?’
I gave him the reasons. ‘Their throats had been cut with a German bayonet. And the murderer escaped riding a BMW motorcycle west, in the direction of Group headquarters. Also I suspect the two victims knew their murderer.’
‘God, how awful. But if it happened near a brothel, as you say, then perhaps it was just a soldiers’ argument about a prostitute.’
I shrugged. ‘The local Gestapo hanged some innocent people for the crime, of course. In retaliation. So a proper sense of order has been restored. Anyway, I just thought I’d ask your opinion.’ I shook my head. ‘Perhaps it was an argument about a whore after all.’
I didn’t really believe that. Not that it mattered very much what I believed about the murders now I was back in Berlin. Trying to figure out who murdered the two army telephonists was down to Lieutenant Voss in Smolensk, and I told myself – and told Von Gersdorff – that if I never saw the place until the year 2043 it would be a hundred years too soon.