Shout in the Dark (21 page)

"
Not that I know of." Kessel shrugged his shoulders, anxious
to meet Helmut Bayer.

"
Well, you will have to come up. He is unable to use the
stairs any more. Mother is up there with him. Her name is Monika.
Did you know her?"

Kessel shook his head. Seen in the studio
mirror, his blond hair was turning to gray now, but it was
unmistakably still fair. Maybe he should have it tinted. "I don't
even know your father, but I think he may recognize me."

The significance behind this statement was
apparently lost on Otto Bayer. "Follow me," he said curtly. He
slipped the catch to the entrance door before leading the way up a
steep flight of stairs to the apartment above the
studio.

"
Someone to see you, Papa. He says you know his
father."

"
Sturmbannführer Kessel!" The shriveled man in the
wheelchair attempted to stand. "Sturmbannführer Kessel! After all
these years..."

The elderly woman who had risen as they
entered the darkened room, restrained the old man from trying to
lift himself from the seat. "Helmut, Helmut," she admonished him.
"You must not exert yourself."

Kessel hardly gave Frau Bayer a glance. He
felt elated. His mother had once mentioned an English soldier in
Anzio. To be confused with his father was the confirmation he
needed. Someone who had known his father thought they were the same
person. A tremendous feeling like an electric shock coursed through
his body. It was true!
It was absolutely true!

Of course that English soldier in Anzio
had not been his father. Why had his mother even mentioned him, in
a moment of sharing a great load of guilt? He'd been stupid to even
entertain the possibility. Rüdi's finger had pointed at him in the
hospital. He was a real German, with a prophetic destiny. The
confirmation was sensational.

"
I am Monika," explained the woman. "You must excuse my
husband, he gets muddled at times. I think it is the staying
indoors so much that aggravates the problem. We are not able to get
out much, as we cannot carry him down the narrow stairs with the
wheelchair."

Kessel could think of nothing to say to
that. What a pathetic ending for a member of the
SS. He recalled how the old soldier had
confused him with his father, and the thought buoyed him
up.

"
I can excuse the mistake, Frau Bayer. My father and I are
very much alike in looks. He would have been a little younger than
me when your husband knew him." His voice swelled with pride as he
spoke. A pride of overwhelming intensity.

A pity they didn't open the curtains
wider. It was gloomy in the apartment, and damp smelling. If he
lived here he would open both the curtains and the window, in spite
of the rain. He was repelled by an overpowering medicinal odor:
some sort of embrocation or liniment. No wonder the old soldier was
going demented.

Helmut Bayer was more capable than his
wife seemed to realize. He had only been taking his time in
thinking. "Of course you cannot be the Sturmbannführer.
Sturmbannführer Kessel was killed outside his lodgings in the Via
Tasso. Good thing too. Never did like the man."

Monika Bayer seized the initiative, using
her tact to save an embarrassing situation from becoming worse.
"You are getting muddled again, Helmut dear. You always spoke
highly of your Sturmbannführer. This is his son. He has come
specially to see you."

Helmut Bayer, his cheeks shrunken and his
limbs wasting away, obviously understood the meaning in his wife's
carefully pronounced words. He agreed that he had indeed been
thinking of someone else, allowing Kessel to introduce himself
formally.

Kessel shook the gaunt hand gently and
began his carefully prepared speech. "It is a privilege,
Untersturmführer Bayer. It is indeed an honor to shake a former
member of the SS
Sicherheitsdienst
by the hand. To think that these very hands were favored
with military service for the Reich."

Helmut Bayer's delicate body shook with
mirth and Monika joined with him. Otto sided with Karl in appearing
to miss the joke.

"
I was a photographer," explained Helmut, while his wife
dabbed tears from his sunken eyes. "All the shooting I ever did was
with my camera!"

Kessel felt obliged to join in with the
stupid laughter, but when sufficient time had elapsed to get to the
point of his visit, he said, "It is for that reason I have come to
see you, Herr Bayer. I want to ask about a monastery that you
raided during the war."

"
There were plenty of those." Suddenly there was no
merriment on the shriveled face. "I lost count of just how many we
searched by the time we had to get out of Italy. Thirty, forty, as
well as schools and churches. God, I regret it all now."

"
I am part of an official organization, working for the
German and Italian governments." Kessel hoped this carefully
fabricated statement would not be questioned. "Shortly before the
death of my father he came upon a monastery with a relic of a
bronze head. Do you remember?"

"
Remember?" Helmut sighed. "Your father threatened to have
me shot. Do you know, someone stole that thing -- and my lovely
camera -- from right under our noses? The Sturmbannführer wanted a
close-up photograph of the head, but I had already used too much of
the film -- on Monika here!" The sickly man gave his wife an
intimate look that told of the closeness that still existed after
many years of marriage.

"
Can you remember what the head looked like?"

"
It was painted white," said the old man after a moment's
thought.

"
But can you describe it to me?" asked Kessel
impatiently.

"
All I can remember is that it was white."

Kessel could have rung the scrawny neck,
but his anger must not show. He had spent too long teaching
self-control at the Total Training weekends to fail here. "Perhaps
you took more photographs, Herr Bayer? Do you still have any as
souvenirs?"

"
I have the film!"

Otto intervened, sounding almost guilty.
"Do not be silly, Papa."

Helmut Bayer appeared weak and confused.
"I had it last night."

Otto Bayer tucked the blanket round the
bony shoulders. "I think you must have been dreaming again,
Father."

"
Dreaming? It is all so confusing, you know."

Kessel produced his treasured photograph
from between the pages of his notebook. "Is this one of yours,
Untersturmführer Bayer?"

Helmut's thin hands snatched it eagerly.
The broad-bordered print obviously brought back memories. "Yes,
yes, it is not the standard military print format. I took it with
my new Leica. A model IIIc I believe. Thirty-five millimeter film.
The first thirty-five-millimeter film I used for the army. It was
all roll-film and glass plates for us before that, but there was
not enough emulsion to spare for large negatives. See those wide
borders; I did not have an enlarger set up for the miniature
negatives from that first film. Sub-miniature we called it at the
time. I remember doing it in a hurry specially for you in ... in
the Via Tasso."

Monika Bayer smoothed his hair. "Now, now,
Helmut, you are getting mixed up again. It was this man's
father
."

Kessel turned to examine the gloomy room.
His own father, had he been spared the war, would be even older
than Helmut Bayer. He had desperately wanted to see his father, a
desire that obsessed him through his growing years. It seemed he'd
been a fool. To watch his father become such a wretched, useless
member of the Fatherland would have sickened him.

Kessel retrieved the photograph from the
bent fingers. It was his only evidence and he did not intend to let
the Bayer family keep it as a memento. "Can you remember what
happened to this painted head?"

"
Perhaps I never knew. Just a monastery on a hill, and
Christian monks and Jews inside with fear in their eyes. We blew it
up, to teach the local community a lesson in co-operation. But I
thought I had the negatives..."

Quite unexpectedly Otto appeared eager to
take a more prominent part in the conversation. "Herr Kessel, my
father is finding sleep difficult with all the pain. He needs rest.
There is no point in reviving these memories. Come downstairs with
me. I must return to my studio. Business is slow and I do not care
to leave the door locked during the day."

Kessel and Otto Bayer descended the narrow
staircase towards fresh air with Kessel holding firmly to the
handrail in the semi-darkness. "Do you want to tell me something
confidential, Herr Bayer?" He tried to sound hopeful, to prompt an
affirmative reply from Otto.

"
If you want to know more about your photograph, Herr
Kessel, then I can help you, yes. One of your friends called here
only yesterday evening."

"
A friend?"

Otto shrugged. "An Italian. He also wanted
to know if my father could remember about a monastery -- a
monastery where the
Sicherheitsdienst
found some special relic."

Kessel stared at Otto but said nothing. He
could feel his heart pumping.

"
Herr Kessel, would you believe my father still had
negatives of your monastery put away with his wartime souvenirs?
Your print was made from one of those negatives. Some years ago, I
found a roll of processed thirty-five millimeter film from his time
with the military, but I didn't bother to examine it."

The silence in the small reception area
was broken only by the snap of the latch as Otto reopened for
business.

"
Your father
had
negatives?"
asked Kessel. Bad news was surely about to follow the
good.

"
I told you, Herr Kessel, one of your colleagues called
yesterday. He flew up from Rome. He talked for over an hour, and I
remembered my father's roll of film. There were several photographs
of my mother wearing nothing. Completely naked. My, she knew how to
pose -- if you understand my meaning. Perhaps you would like to see
them?"

Kessel drew away in horror at the thought
that this man could leer at pictures of his mother stripped for the
camera. The porn films he and Rüdi had bought and sold had been for
the ADR, and at the time left him unmoved. Maybe he had become
prudish, but this was close and it was personal. He should have
been aware that something was wrong. The whole atmosphere in the
building seemed unhealthy.

He wanted to get out into the street, into
the open air. At least he was normal, although by choice he had
never started an intimate relationship with a woman. It had been
necessary to put all thoughts of sex from his mind as he grew into
manhood. The chance of a child with Italian looks, or worse still
with Jewish looks, was too high for a man with Aryan blood in his
veins to risk. A life devoted to serving the ADR, devoid of sex
outside his own hands, had been the outlet for his creative
energy.

"
Your Italian friend only wanted the negatives of the
monastery, Herr Kessel. I am, of course, extremely grateful to him
for bringing the film to light again." Otto smiled, showing a row
of regular, white teeth.

"
Do you mind if I sit down?" Without waiting for permission,
Kessel sat on an upright red velvet chair below a pin-sharp color
photograph of a Bavarian castle. Otto Bayer was not to be trusted.
"Let me get this straight. Your father had kept the negatives from
which this photograph was printed?"

"
He was not supposed to, but things were chaotic towards the
end of the war."

"
And you've given them to an Italian!" Kessel interrupted
the photographer deliberately, not even trying to conceal his
contempt.

"
Only the military ones. I think he wants them for
publication. He was very generous, and my father needs the money
much more than he needs a roll of old film."

"
Your father signed a contract?"

Otto remained silent for a moment. "It was
cash in hand, and I am looking after the money for the moment. Of
course I will bank it for Papa soon, but I do not want him to know
about it just yet. He will only become agitated. The Italian says
he will send a further fee when he makes use of any of the
pictures. The Italian is apparently working for a publisher of
wartime literature. Ah, maybe you are a competitor!" There was
sarcasm in Otto Bayer's voice.

Kessel looked at Karl in the hope that
inspiration for the next move would come from the brain-dead
skinhead. But Karl was fiddling with a Hasselblad camera as Otto
watched anxiously, hands clenched, clearly unwilling to say
anything for fear his words might precipitate disaster.

Kessel stood up slowly from the velvet
chair. "Herr Bayer, the Italian and I are ... both very interested
in ... the discoveries made in these monasteries during the war."
He cursed himself for not having thought through his story. The
idea that someone had been here yesterday was shattering and
certainly not a coincidence.