A Man Without Breath (Bernie Gunther Mystery 9) (19 page)

‘The way I look at it is this, and I hope you’ll forgive my foolhardy honesty here, but it seems to me that you need this inquiry to be completed urgently, within the next three months – before the Soviets overrun our positions.’

‘Don’t you believe in our final victory, captain?’

‘Everyone on the Russian front knows that the whole thing is going to come down to Stalin’s maths. When we recaptured Kharkov it cost the Reds seventy thousand men and us almost five thousand. The difference is that while the Ivans can afford to lose seventy thousand men we can ill afford to lose five thousand. After Stalingrad, there’s a good chance of a Russian counterattack this summer – on Kharkov and on Smolensk.’ I shrugged. ‘So, this inquiry has to be handled quickly. Before the end of the summer. Perhaps earlier.’

Goebbels nodded. ‘Let’s suppose for a moment that I agree with you,’ he said. ‘And I don’t say that I do. The leader certainly doesn’t. He believes that once the colossus that is the Soviet Union starts to totter, it will suffer an historic collapse, after which we’ll have nothing to fear from an Anglo-American invasion.’

I nodded. ‘I’m sure the leader knows the situation better than me, Herr Reich minister.’

‘But go ahead anyway. What else would you recommend?’

The coffee arrived. It gave me time to fetch another cigarette from the elegant box on the table and to wonder if I should mention another idea. Good coffee has that effect on me.

‘As I see it, we’ve got two weeks before we can do anything – and I think it’s going to take two weeks to make this happen. I mean, it won’t be easy.’

‘Go on.’

‘This is going to sound crazy,’ I said.

Goebbels shrugged. ‘Speak freely, please.’

I pulled a face, and then drank some coffee while I mulled it over for another second.

‘You know, I talk to my mother a lot,’ confessed Goebbels. ‘Mostly in the evening when I return from work. I always think she knows the voice of the people much better than
me. Better than a lot of the so-called experts who judge things from the ivory tower of scientific inquiry. What I always learn from her is this: the man who succeeds is the man who is able to reduce problems to their simplest terms and who has the courage of his convictions – despite the objections of intellectuals. The courage to speak, perhaps, even when he believes that what he is suggesting sounds like madness. So, please captain, let me be the judge of what’s crazy and what isn’t.’

I shrugged. It seemed ridiculous for me to be worrying about the image of Germany abroad. Would one less crime laid at our door really make any difference? But I had to believe there was a possibility it might.

‘Coffee’s good,’ I said. ‘And so are the cigarettes. You know a lot of doctors say smoking is not good for you. Mostly I ignore doctors. After the trenches I tend to believe in things like fate and a bullet with my name on it. But right now a lot of doctors is what I think we need. Yes sir, as many corpse handlers as we can muster. In other words a lot of forensic pathologists, and from all over Europe, too. Enough to make this look like an independent inquiry, if such a thing is possible in the middle of a war. An international commission, perhaps.’

‘You mean assembled in Smolensk?’

‘Yes. We dig the bodies up under the eyes of the whole world so that no one can say that Germany was responsible.’

‘You know, that’s quite an audacious idea.’

‘And we should try to make sure that anyone from the government or the National Socialist Party, but especially the SS and the SD, has as little to do with the investigation as possible.’

‘This is interesting. How do you mean?’

‘We could put the whole investigation under the control of the International Red Cross. Better still, under the control of the Polish Red Cross, if they’ll wear it. We could even arrange for a few journalists to accompany the commission to Smolensk. From the neutral countries – Sweden and Switzerland. And perhaps some senior Allied prisoners of war – a few British and American generals, if we have any. To use as witnesses. We could put them under parole and let them have free access to the site.’ I shrugged. ‘When I was a cop handling a murder inquiry, you had to let the press in on things. When you didn’t they’d think you were trying to hide something. And that’s especially true here.’

Goebbels was nodding. ‘I like this idea,’ he said. ‘I like it very much. We can take pictures and shoot newsreel like it’s a proper news story. And we could also let the neutral country journalists go where they want, speak to whoever they want. Everything in the open. Yes, that’s excellent.’

‘The Gestapo will hate that, of course. But that’s good, too. The press and the experts will see it and draw their own conclusions: that there are no secrets in Smolensk. At least there are no German secrets.’

‘You leave the Gestapo to me,’ said Goebbels. ‘I can handle those bastards.’

‘There is one argument against it, however,’ I said. ‘And it’s a pretty damned important one.’

‘And what is that?’

‘I should think that anyone in Germany who is related to one of our men taken prisoner at Stalingrad would find it profoundly worrying to be reminded of what the Reds are capable of. I mean there’s no telling that our boys haven’t met or will meet the same fate as those Polish officers.’

‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘And it’s a terrible thought. But if they’re dead, they’re dead, and there’s nothing we can do about that. On the other hand, if they’re still alive I tend to think that shining a light on this particular crime might actually help to keep them that way. After all, the Russians are certain to deny responsibility for these poor Poles, and it would hardly support their argument if they were unable to show the world that their German POWs are alive.’

I nodded. Joey could be pretty persuasive. But he hadn’t finished with me yet. In fact, he’d hardly even started.

‘You know, it’s right what you said – about lawyers. I’ve never liked them very much. Most people think I’m a lawyer myself, because of my Ph.D. But my doctoral thesis at Heidelberg University was about a romantic playwright called Wilhelm von Schütz. He was the first to translate Casanova’s memoirs into German.’

For a moment I wondered if this might be why Joey was such a womanizer.

‘I even wrote a novel, you know. I was a very open, Renaissance sort of fellow. After that, I was a journalist and I gained a real respect for policemen.’

I let that one go. During the Weimar Republic, my old boss at Kripo, Bernhard Weiss, had been a frequent target of the Nazi newspapers because he was a Jew, and at one time Weiss had even sued Goebbels for libel and won. But when the Nazis took power, Weiss had been obliged to flee for his life to Czechoslovakia, and then England.

‘And of course two of my favourite movies are about the Berlin police:
M
and
The Testament of Doctor Mabuse
. Subversive and hardly conducive to the public good, but really quite brilliant, too.’

I had the vague memory that the Nazis had banned
Mabuse
,
but I couldn’t remember for sure. When the minister of propaganda is interested in your opinion it tends to affect your concentration.

‘So, I agree with you one hundred per cent,’ he said. ‘A policeman is what this investigation needs most. Someone who’s in charge but not obviously in charge, if you know what I mean. It could even be someone authorized by this ministry to do everything, from securing the area – after all, there might be some Russian saboteurs down there who’d like to conceal the truth from the world – to ensuring the full cooperation of those damned flamingos at Army Group Centre. They won’t like this any more than the Gestapo. Von Kluge and Von Tresckow. Believe me, I’ve had to put up with that kind of snobbery all my life.’

This sounded worryingly like my own opinion.

Goebbels took out a cigarette case and quickly lit a cigarette, warming to his own train of thought. I had a horrible feeling that he was measuring me up for the job he was starting to describe.

‘And of course it will have to be someone who can make sure that there is no wasted time. Perhaps you’re right about that, too. About Stalin’s maths. And think about it, Captain Gunther. Think about the sheer diplomatic and logistical nightmare of making sure that all those foreigners and journalists are allowed to do their jobs without interference. Think about the overwhelming need for there to be one man behind the scenes, making sure that everything runs smoothly. Yes, I do ask you to think about that, please. You’ve been there. You know what’s what. In short, what this investigation needs is a man to manage the site and the situation. Yes, it’s obvious to me that his investigation needs
you
, Captain Gunther.’

I started to disagree, but Goebbels was already waving away my objections with the back of his hand.

‘Yes, yes, I know you said you didn’t want to return to Smolensk, and I can’t blame you for that. Frankly, I can’t think of anything worse than being away from Berlin. Especially when it’s a dump like Smolensk. But I’m appealing to you, captain. Your country needs you. Germany is asking you to help clear her name of this bestial deed. If like me you want the truth about this awful crime to be laid at the door of the Bolshevik barbarians who carried it out, then you’ll accept this task.’

‘I don’t know what to say, sir. I mean it’s flattering, of course. But I’m not at all diplomatic.’

‘Yes, I’d noticed that already.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘If you do this service for me you will not find me ungrateful. You’ll soon find that I’m a good person to have on your side, captain. And I’ve a long memory, as you already know.’ He started to wag his finger at me in the same way I’d seen him do on the newsreels. ‘Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but I never forget my friends.’

There was of course an opposite side to this coin, though Goebbels was too clever to draw it to my attention right away, not while he was still trying to seduce me. On the whole I prefer to do the seducing myself, but it was increasingly clear to me that there wasn’t going to be room for me to refuse a man who only had to pick up the telephone again and instead of ordering coffee instruct one of his lackeys to have the Gestapo turn up at the door on Wilhelmplatz to give me a lift to Prinz Albrechtstrasse. So I listened, and after a while I started to nod my compliance, and when he asked me straight out, yes or no, if I would take the job, I said I would.

He smiled and nodded his appreciation. ‘Good, good. I
appreciate it. Look, I’ve not made that journey myself but I know it’s a brutal one, so I’ll have my own plane fly you down there. Shall we say tomorrow? You can have whatever you need.’

‘Yes, Herr Reich minister.’

‘I’ll speak to Von Kluge himself and make sure you have his full cooperation as well as the best accommodation that’s available. And of course I’ll draw up some letters patent explaining your powers as my plenipotentiary.’

I didn’t much like the idea of representing Goebbels in Smolensk. It was one thing taking charge of the Katyn Wood investigation and an international commission; but I hardly wanted soldiers looking at me and seeing the cut-out of a man with a club foot and a sharp line in suits and phrase-making.

‘These things have a habit of not remaining secret for very long,’ I said, carefully. ‘Especially in the field. For form’s sake it would be best if the powers granted to me in your letter made it quite clear that I am acting as a member of the War Crimes Bureau and not the ministry of propaganda. It wouldn’t look good if one of those journalists or perhaps someone from the International Red Cross gained the impression that we were trying to stage-manage the situation. That would discredit everything.’

‘Yes, yes, you’re right, of course. For the same reason you had better go down there wearing a different uniform. An army uniform, perhaps. It’s best we keep the SS and the SD as far away from the scene as possible.’

‘That most of all, sir.’

He stood up and ushered me to the door of his office.

‘While you’re down there I shall expect regular reports on the teletype. And don’t worry about Judge Goldsche, I shall
telephone him immediately and explain the situation. I shall simply say that all of this was my idea, not yours. Which of course he’ll believe.’ He grinned. ‘I flatter myself that I can be very persuasive.’

He opened the door and walked me down the magnificent staircase so quickly I hardly noticed the limp, which was, I suppose, the general idea.

‘For a while after your time in Kripo you were a private detective, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘When you get back we’ll talk again. About another service you might be able to do for me this summer. And which you’ll certainly find is considerably to your advantage.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you.’

The sun was shining, and as I walked out of the ministry onto Wilhelmplatz it seemed to me that my own shadow had more substance and character than I did, as if the body occluding the light behind it had been cursed into spineless insignificance by some evil troll, and for no good reason I stopped and spat onto the black contour as if I had been spitting onto my own body. It didn’t make me feel any better. In lieu of bending my own ear with accusations of cowardice and craven cooperation with a man and a government I loathed, it was nothing more – or less – than an expression of the dislike I now felt for my own person. Sure, I told myself, I had said yes to Goebbels because I wanted to do something to help restore Germany’s reputation abroad, but I knew this was only partly true. Mostly I agreed with the diabolic doctor because I was afraid of him. Fear. It’s a problem I often have with the Nazis. It’s a problem every German has with the Nazis. At least those Germans who are still alive.

Friday, March 26th 1943

The spring thaw in Smolensk still looked to be a long way off. A fresh layer of snow covered the broken cobbles and twisted tramlines of Gefängnisstrasse, a fairly typical-looking street in the south of the city – typical only by the standards of the Spanish Peninsular War that is: in Smolensk there were times when I found myself looking around for Goya and his sketchbook. In the turret of a burnt-out tank on the corner of Friedhofstrasse was the blackened corpse of a dead Ivan made more macabre by the sign in German he was holding in a skeletal hand directing traffic north, to Commandant’s Square. A horse was dragging a sled laden with an impossible quantity of logs while its one-armed owner, swaddled in quilted rags and with a length of string for a belt, walked slowly alongside smoking a pungent pipe. A babushka wearing several headscarves had set up a stall by the prison door and was selling kittens and puppies, but not as pets; on her feet were waterproof shoes made from old car tyres. Beside her, a bearded man was carrying a yoke with a pail of milk on each end and holding a tin mug in his hand; I bought a mugful and drank the best milk I’d tasted in a long time
– cold and delicious. The man himself looked just like Tolstoy – even the dogs in Smolensk looked like Tolstoy.