Double-Barrel (24 page)

‘I might, if I knew what to say.'

‘You came, I take it, to do, not just to say.'

‘I don't know what to do, either.'

He looked at me. He got up then, shuffled slowly across the room – I could see he missed his stick – and brought his brandy bottle and two glasses. He offered one to me; I took it. We clinked together solemnly, two men separated by everything and by nothing.

‘You're drinking, then?' I said stupidly.

‘I am forbidden alcohol, yes. What importance has it? I shall not in any case live long.'

I suddenly got an extremely silly idea, which startled me.

‘This brandy's not poisoned, is it?' It got his ironical smile.

‘I had thought my melodramatic days over. I possess no poisons. I have no wish to kill myself; I have no interest even in killing you.'

‘Yet I have told no one I was coming here.' Did I wish to tempt him, I wondered. Why did I say that?

‘I think I understand that.'

‘I dare say that I could, quite easily, disappear. Not even my wife knows where I am?

‘Are you suggesting that I should disappear?'

‘Would it help?'

‘No longer.'

‘You'd rather go in front of a tribunal?'

‘At least I should not defend myself with excuses. Like Eichmann. The eternal subordinate. The man was always, you know, something of a fool. A competent fool.'

‘I don't think it ever occurred to anyone to bother whether he was a fool,' I said, perhaps too sarcastically.

‘Is that what you propose doing? To hand me to the Jews? Whom I persecuted, killed? Whose identity, finally, I stole? It would be more than just.'

‘I don't want to be more than just. And I must not be less.'

‘You simply don't know,' looking straight at me.

‘No.'

‘Why?'

‘I don't think I should ever understand. Even if you told me. I don't want any confessions. I could not grasp it. You have done things that are monstrous, unbelievable. Legend has exaggerated your exploits to a degree where I can't take them seriously. I can only see you as you are. A retired civil
servant with a nervous illness. A man I have known, spoken to, shaken hands with, clinked glasses with. A man I like. Or is that Besançon?'

‘Perhaps,' gravely.

‘I should prefer to have had none of these experiences.'

‘I understand.'

‘The real Besançon, I take it…'

‘Is buried in the grave in Berlin.'

‘He resembled you closely?'

‘Very. Looking at us together, one could not tell which was the Jew. Bormann made a coarse joke about it one day.'

‘You had planned it for a long time?'

‘I planned,' impassively, ‘to steal him. Which I did.'

‘Your family knows?'

‘No.'

I left it at that.

‘It was noticed, here, that you shunned the company of women. It was thought by some a suspicious circumstance.'

He laughed, quite ordinarily, pleasantly.

‘Why do you laugh?'

‘I had told myself, you see, that I would keep a sort of fidelity to my wife. I was – I am – what is called a good family man. That, it seems, has drawn attention to me. When I had no other fidelities … neither to myself, to my country, to my state, to my function, to my absurd Leader. To nothing.' He held his open hands up as though to show me that they contained nothing. He laid them then on the table, flat, loose, watching the trembling with a sort of curiosity.

It was good French cognac. Written on the label was
Fournisseur à Sa Majest é le Roi de Suède
. He had given me a generous glass too. Perhaps it gave me false courage.

‘Tell me, then. What did you do?'

‘What happens to civil servants, Inspector van der Valk, who come to the conclusion that their government has
betrayed them? They commit treason. Himmler, that idealist, tried to bargain with the Americans. I was more clear-sighted. I had understood the meaning of Yalta, of Casablanca. Germans alone could save Germany. I was too late; we had committed too many crimes.'

I do believe he had forgotten I was there. He had passed into his familiar train of thought, from which there was no outlet. He had perhaps been mad – he was no longer so, and he doubted whether it ever had been so. He had deceived himself with mass hysteria, and remained too clear-sighted to believe in it. He had taken refuge in the peculiar German cloudiness and confusion of thought that accompany German orderliness and efficiency, and found his thought refused to cloud; the merciful opacity of Himmler had eluded him. Everything had failed him, one refuge after the other. The mystique of the Administration, of the Fatherland, of the Leader – all had crumbled and collapsed.

He had looked for every possible excuse. When he had seen what crimes he had committed in the name of his sacred Department he had tried to quieten his torments by embarking on wilder, more fantastic, more dreadful crimes than ever. He had fallen into the myth of predestination, believing – for a while – that he had been sent as a scourge, himself damned, but elected by God to lie heavy on the necks of his fellow men.

He had clung to every excuse as long as he had been able. His clear mind had forced him inexorably to abandon one after the other.

Finally he had found himself the most odious name in Europe; every human being alert for the blood of Gestapo Müller. All his intelligence and force had been called up to save his pride. What did they know; what could they understand, these peasants? Americans, English, Russians – his contempt for them was as great as had been his contempt for Germans, for Jews. He was not going to defend himself, justify himself. And he wasn't going to be caught,
to be ignominiously butchered. God would save Müller.

God had. Ever since he had wondered why.

Instead of death, and possible expiation, peace, he had been allowed to live. He disdained the network of underground sympathizers. Fools and criminals.

He did not dare even to trust his family. God had sent him a slow, mortal disease, as though to say to him, ‘You have still time'. But God had not affected his intelligence.

‘A man will cling to his life,' I heard myself saying.

‘I agree. Even Müller. During the long periods of interrogation I thought daily that I would be discovered. How many times have I wanted to scream, to say, “Fools, fools, can you not see what is under your nose?” They accepted me as a Jew. For years I stayed here, wondering what was required of me. Then the police came again. Not to demand a reckoning from Müller, but to know whether a crazy old Jew had written obscene letters to respectable Dutch housewives. The irony of it … I lived in daily fear, but I clung still to my life. It is all I have left. It is worth remarkably little. You have come to take it. You are the one who, accidentally, has discovered the secret that all Europe has hunted for.'

I did not care for the idea that I was the instrument chosen by God to bring Gestapo Müller to justice. What justice? Justice, with somebody who has committed crimes like these, does not exist. They put Eichmann in a glass case, and played out a long-drawn, odious, humiliating farce. It did the Jews no good, the world no good. Did it do Eichmann good? It was not my job to decide that. They had to hang him; they had no choice. What battle had gone on in the mind of the President of Israel, before with a sigh he had signed the paper that released the trap-door?

I was furious with the chance – chance? – that had brought me face to face with this man. Surely he was coming to the inescapable conclusion that what was wanted of him was a voluntary surrender to a will that was not his.
Free will is the most important thing we have. I refuse to be a predestined agent for the arrest of Müller.

‘Damn you,' I said. ‘I should take you outside and shoot you, with no more ado than if you were a sheep-killing dog.'

‘That is quite natural,' he said in Besançon's voice.

‘Both dramatic and handy,' I said sourly. I was not happy at my seeming inability to do anything at all.

‘You are a bad policeman,' thoughtfully, wearily.

‘I have never realized it more completely than now.'

‘We have at least self-knowledge in common. I will help you, by telling you a story.'

‘Go ahead,' dully.

‘It was decided to provoke a frontier incident that would give pretext for an invasion of Poland. A man called Müller was entrusted with this. He gave the operation the name “Canned Goods” – being a fellow of humour. He arranged for half a dozen condemned criminals to be transported to a selected border post where there was a communications centre of no importance. The criminals were given injections, dressed in German uniforms, and shot while unconscious, to give the impression of a Polish attack.' He paused, and gave me a smile that belonged to Müller – the Müller that thought of the name ‘Canned Goods' – rather than to Besançon.

‘I have had no injection, of course. But I am dying as surely as though I had. And I am a condemned criminal.'

I found my hands trembling. Like his. If I had a gun, I thought, I would shoot this man, here, on the spot. Who would ever know?

He reached down slowly, opened the drawer of his table, and put a pistol on the desk between us. I stared at this pistol.

‘I took considerable pains to acquire that. I have often been tempted to use it. But I have had too much pride.'

The tension broke; I felt myself a man again.

‘You Germans. Always a drama.'

‘You are a policeman. It would be easily arranged.'

‘And would it satisfy your conscience for “Canned Goods”? Your life is no good to me. Yes, I thought the trials at Nuremberg a farce. I would have shot them straight away, “while trying to escape” – the classic formula. But I can't shoot you.'

‘You are going to let me go? To die my lingering little death, reading the Bible every day?'

‘I have to decide.'

‘What do you believe?' he asked suddenly.

‘Do not ask me what I believe.'

‘I am a better policeman than you are, Mr van der Valk.'

‘Perhaps,' I said. ‘We shall see.'

Fear suddenly passed over the face again, despite the self-control.

‘You are going to arrest me.'

‘That is my duty.'

The hand went suddenly to the pistol, but the degenerated nerves were too unsure. I released the grip, put the catch on, and stuck the thing in my pocket.

‘Put your overcoat on.'

‘You're going to give me to the Jews.'

‘I'm going to give you to the government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. No Jews will kidnap you.'

‘I see no difference,' bitterly. ‘You take refuge under your official identity – I thought you were a man. Your kingdom will do the same. Officially, praiseworthily, they will give me to the Jews. You … bureaucrat. Without the courage either to let me go or shoot me.'

‘Listen to me.' My voice, I could hear, was not under control. ‘Every instinct I have is to let you go. Moral, ethical, legal, personal – call it what you like; I don't care. And it would be expedient into the bargain. I won't do it.'

I watched him bring his features under control.

‘Very well,' said the old voice, with its calm, quiet tone. ‘I had all the same reasons to surrender myself – and I could
not do that, either. You are right to force me.' It had dignity. For the first time, I felt my old liking, even respect, for the man.

‘I will get my coat.' He turned to me again. ‘I have courage, you know.'

We walked, the old man using his rubber-tipped stick. We passed the Jewish cemetery. Müller glanced up at the Hebrew characters on the gateposts.

‘You know what it says?'

‘I can't read Hebrew.'

‘I can,' softly. ‘One of Müller's strange accomplishments. It says “Born, mankind is doomed to die. Dead, mankind is destined to live again”.'

We walked on.

‘Grace,' suddenly. ‘Oliver Cromwell fought his hardest battles for it. A crowning mercy …'

‘I don't believe,' I said, ‘that grace has to be fought for. I believe it's there for the asking.'

We reached the police bureau.

The desk man recognized me this time; he got up. Seeing Besançon, he looked puzzled. What had they arrested Burger for, then?

‘This man is to be given a cell. I want him treated with every consideration. There's no charge, at present.'

‘But what am I to put on the form, Inspector?'

‘Oh, some stupid bureaucratic phrase. “Provisional detention pending judicial decision” – never mind, I'll do it. Here, give me the keys.'

The fellow looked bemused, but wasn't going to question an officer. I opened the steel door. The bureau was a modern one, and the cell was clean and well kept.

‘Say nothing here – you'll understand. I'll see about changing this as soon as I possibly can. In the meantime, I'll see that you get everything you need from your home.'

The old man was trembling, badly, shakier than I had
ever seen him. But the eyes – the famous darting eyes of legend – were steady. He looked very resolute.

‘Thank you.'

I wheeled abruptly at the door.

‘Forgive me,' I held out my hand.

‘You are willing to shake hands with Heinrich Müller?'

‘Yes.'

He pulled himself up, and gave me a formal, German bow.

‘I'll phone your Inspector,' I said to the desk man, who was fussing about Christian names and Date and Place of Birth. ‘No – I'd better go round to his house.'

‘Safety of the Realm Act?'

‘I've no idea myself. If I were you I'd just say and do nothing, till you hear. I'll make a personal report to the Procureur-Général tomorrow morning. He'll decide.'

‘But my god, Van der Valk – who is it?'