The Final Reckoning (9 page)

They killed them in batches of three hundred, with no guarantee that one batch was finished when work began on the next. They had to work fast. Besides, ammunition was rationed so that the Nazis could not afford more than one bullet to the back per victim. And most of the gunmen were drunk.

The result was that many Jews were not dead when they fell; they were buried alive. This was the fate, especially, of the children. But not only them. Those who saw it told of how the pit moved for three days, how it breathed.

This is the event they call the ‘great action’ of October 28 1941, when ten thousand Jews were driven out of the Kovno ghetto and put to death.

And this is how my sisters were killed.

The girl who had found her way back, shivering and starving, to the ghetto, was one of those who had been buried but not shot. She had passed out as she fell, but some time later she had awoken to the realization that there were corpses all around her, above and below her. She was wedged in by dead flesh, pressing on her so hard it made her choke.

Most of those buried alive were too weak to climb out of the pits, to use the limbs of the dead as rungs on a ladder. They gave up and suffocated under the bodies. Those who did manage to haul themselves out were usually spotted and shot, and this time with no mistakes made. But this girl, she was nervous and cautious. So she waited till the middle of the night, when the drunken chanting and singing of the Nazi gunmen and their Lithuanian comrades had faded into sleep. And so she had escaped, out of the Fort and back to the ghetto.

This was the story she told once she was clothed and fed and could speak. And this was the story which had reached the leaders of the Jewish underground in Kovno, those men in the cellar. Perhaps for the first time they understood what kind of threat they faced. And so they had decided they must spread the word to those who were also trying to fight back. Which was why they sent me to Warsaw.

And so, many years later, I came to understand the meaning of the message I had carried. I also understood why the men in the cellar did not explain it to me. It was not just because I might be tortured. It was also because they did not dare tell me what had happened to my sisters. Perhaps they thought I would have been so blinded by anger, so broken, that I would not have been able to carry out my mission.

But I did carry it out and I met the man I was meant to meet in Warsaw. I waited for him for three hours, but I met him. He was the leader of the underground in the Warsaw ghetto; he too was a young man who looked old.

When I said the words, ‘Aunt Esther has turned up again and is at Megilla Street 7, apartment 4’ he looked bemused. But then he asked for someone to bring him a book, a holy book rescued from the ruins of a synagogue in the ghetto. It was the Book of Esther, which Jews call the Megilla of Esther. It is the book we read for the festival of Purim, which commemorates a plot many hundreds of years ago to destroy the Jews.

This leader of the underground turned to chapter seven, verse four and then he understood everything. He read it out loud, as if it would help him think. ‘“For I and my people are sold to be exterminated, slain and lost; but if we were only being sold as slaves and maidservants, I would have stayed silent”.’

The more Tom read of Gerald Merton's life story, the more he found himself thinking about Rebecca. How ironic that a woman who seemed to bubble and throb with life, as if she were keeping the lid on an almost volcanic vitality, should have emerged from a world choking with death. She was even named for a grandmother who had hanged herself.

He tried to focus on his task, the job of work Henning Munchau had asked him to do. There was no denying it: the bind from which he was meant to extricate the UN was only getting tighter. They had not only killed a survivor of the Holocaust but apparently one of its heroes: the young boy who, in disguise, had travelled across occupied Europe carrying word of the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews.

And Tom had accused him of being a suicide bomber. Thank God he had kept to himself his earlier intuition: that old man Merton, birthplace
Kaunas, was some kind of Baltic war criminal who had sought post-war asylum in the UK. He had been as stupid as the German and Lithuanian guards young Matzkin had dodged again and again: he had seen the blue eyes and the uncircumcised penis of that corpse on the pathologist's slab and he had never once considered that he might have been looking at a Jew.

His phone rang; a New York number. If it were Henning, he would explain the depth of the trouble they were in and suggest he needed more time. This was going to require diplomatic footwork of great dexterity if it were not to turn into a grave blow to the reputation of the United Nations.

‘Tom? It's Jay Sherrill. I have some news.’

‘OK.’

‘That New York number we saw on the cellphone? Belongs to the Russian, to the arms dealer.’

‘Really? Wow.’

‘I know. Incredible, isn't it? That's not all. Overnight I had a team do a deep search of Merton's hotel room, unscrewing floorboards, the works. They found something hidden in a wall cavity in the bathroom, just by the extractor fan. Very professionally concealed.’

‘What is it?’

‘A state-of-the-art, compact, plastic-build revolver. Russian. ·357 Magnum calibre. A gun specially designed and marketed to escape detection by security scanners. All you have to conceal
are the steel inserts and the bullets; the gun-frame itself gets through unnoticed. Ballistics have examined it. Get this: apparently it's the weapon of choice in the assassin community.’ Tom could hear Sherrill's amusement at his own joke.

‘Hold on, Detective.’ There was the beep of a call waiting. Tom looked at the display: a London number he didn't recognize.

‘Tom Byrne? It's Rebecca Merton. You need to come here right now. Do you hear me? RIGHT NOW!’

‘I want to go to the funeral.’

‘I can see the case for that, Secretary-General.’

‘So you think it's a good idea? I'm glad, Munchau. My political staff say it would be unwise.’

‘Why do they say that, sir?’

‘Gowers here says it could be seen as an admission of liability. I said that was a legal point, not a political one. Which is why I was so keen to see you. If you see no legal problem, then we can go ahead. You're the boss.’

At that, the Secretary-General dipped his head in a small, courtly nod as if to say, ‘over to you’. The
Time
magazine profile had been right: ‘the world's top diplomat has world-class charm’. He embodied everything people liked about the Nordics: wholly professional, yet without Teutonic efficiency; informal, without American over-familiarity; progressive, without Latin fervour. The magazine had said that, just as some argued the
Olympics should always be in Athens, so the world would be a better place if the top post at the UN was permanently in Nordic hands. The rotation system wouldn't allow such a thing, of course, but once Asia and Africa had had their turn, and a European seemed possible, then the long-standing foreign minister of Finland rapidly became the obvious choice. The Russians had been expected to object but, to everyone's surprise, they didn't and so Paavo Viren had glided into the post unopposed.

‘Why are you so keen to go, sir?’

‘I think it's the right thing to do. This man was killed on our soil, in our care. I think we have to take responsibility for that and make amends for it. Don't you?’

‘I can see that.’

‘You keep
seeing
things but not telling me what you think. Please Dr Munchau, give me your opinion.’

Before he had a chance, the Secretary-General's Chef de Cabinet leaned forward to speak. The three of them, plus a note-taker, were in the SG's private office, arranged on the two couches which he had installed within days of his arrival: the essential tools of diplomacy, he had called them.

‘While you think on that, Dr Munchau,’ the Chef de Cabinet began, ‘let me just game out some of the scenarios here. Best case is the SG flies to London, has a handshake and photo-op with Merton's daughter, and that draws a line under
the whole episode. Worst case: he turns up for the funeral, gets spurned, maybe even faces protests and barracking and then we've magnified a problem into a larger crisis.’

‘All right, that's enough, Marti. We need to hear what the Legal Counsel thinks.’

‘Well, sir. Strictly speaking, there is no legally meaningful admission implied by your visiting the family. As you say, you are paying condolences simply because this terrible accident happened on our soil.’

‘Good.’

‘But.’

‘Ah, a but. In this building, there is always a but, no?’

‘Such a move will inevitably be seen as an act of contrition. Secretaries General ordinarily attend only the funerals of heads of government or heads of state. For you to go to London would be such an extraordinary gesture, it would imply we had something to apologize for.’

‘Well, we do.’

The Chef de Cabinet looked aghast; Henning Munchau smiled tolerantly. ‘That's not something we would want to say publicly, sir. Certainly not at this stage.’

‘Oh, for heaven's sake.’

‘I'm quite serious, sir. We cannot possibly make any kind of apology or statement of regret until we have all the facts. Which we don't yet have.’

‘We killed an innocent man!’

‘But, sir, the crucial point is that the UN guard did not know that at the time. The officer on duty seems to have believed the man in question posed an immediate threat to the life of our personnel. Which would make this a killing in self-defence.’

‘OK, so we apologize for that then. It was a genuine mistake, but we apologize for it. What's wrong with that?’

Henning shot a quick glance at the chef de cabinet, a look that said: ‘Christ, have we been saddled with a boy scout as Secretary-General?’

Detecting the dissent, the boss sat back. ‘Look, I'm not naïve. I see the risks. But you're not thinking politically. If I'm photographed with the widow, or daughter or whoever it is, showing humility, that makes me look good. Transparent, honest, human. A new approach from the new man at the UN. This could be wonderful PR.’

Over my dead body, thought Henning. ‘Sir, let me speak with my man in London. If he's managed to square the family, then your idea could be a very good one. I'll get in touch with him right away. I don't think he'll let us down.’

The front door was open, just as it had been earlier, but this time there were no other voices. He reached the landing where he had first met Rebecca Merton three hours earlier. Now all he could see was her back, as she surveyed the wreckage of her apartment.

The floor was covered with books, every shelf methodically emptied. Their pages had been flung open, their bindings ripped. On the wall hung frames denuded of pictures; posters and canvasses lay torn among broken glass.

The sofa had been slashed, its stuffing bursting out like unkempt hair. The TV had been upended; even the plants had been shaken from their pots. Tom had never seen a place so comprehensively trashed. This was no ordinary robbery.

Suddenly she wheeled around, her eyes ablaze. ‘Well, this bloody confirms it. Did you watch them do it then? Did you stand and watch?’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I'm talking about the fact that my home just happens to have been smashed up straight after you came here. And look, five minutes after I call you, you're back. Were you on the corner the whole time, making sure they did a good job?’

‘Are you mad? This had nothing to do with me.’

‘It's a bit of a coincidence, isn't it? First the UN kill my father and the next day my flat – which has never once been burgled by the way – is suddenly wrecked.’

‘You think the
UN
did this?’

‘What were you looking for? Dirt?’ There was a hint of the crooked smile. ‘Is that why you sent the boys in, Tom Byrne? To see what discrediting filth you could dig up on the dead man's daughter? So if I dared to demand justice from the organization that killed my father, you'll start telling the
News of the World
who I fucked at medical school? Jesus, and this is the holier-than-thou United Nations.’

‘Look, you're getting hysterical.’ He regretted the word instantly. Call a woman any name you like, but never, ever say she's hysterical. ‘You think the UN goes around smashing up people's houses? You don't think that, at this particular moment, we're in quite enough trouble with the Merton family without adding this to the pile?’ He gestured towards the debris of her apartment. ‘The UN doesn't have the people to do
anything
, let alone household burglaries in EC1.’

She looked at him hard, as if scrutinizing his face for signs of truthfulness. He found the gaze unnerving, because all he wanted to do was look back. Then she turned around as if remembering something and sprinted upstairs.

Tom saw his chance. He swiftly reached into his briefcase, pulled out Gershon Matzkin's notebook and was about to throw it onto the pile in the centre of the room when something stopped him: he wanted to be straight with her. He put the book back inside his bag, waiting for the right moment.

A few seconds later, she was back, brushing past him into the kitchen. She only touched him for a second but it was enough: he almost rocked back on his heels from the charge of it. The arousal was instant. Was he the kind of man to get turned on by the sight of a woman in distress? He didn't think so. Or was it just the combined effects of fatigue and adrenalin? He had no guide; he hadn't felt this way since adolescence.

She came back past him, and he caught the musky smell of her. The urge to grab hold of her wrist and pull her close nearly overwhelmed him. He felt as if his powers of reason were shrinking, the space filled up by a growing, expanding desire.

He followed her on her tour of devastation: what on earth had happened here? It would have been extremely rapid; she and he had barely been gone an hour. And expert, too: the perpetrators
must have seen both of them leave. The superficial items of value – TV set, stereo – were still in place. This wasn't the work of crackheads out to make fifty quid. They had been desperate to find something specific.

And now Rebecca was searching, clearly panicked that some precious object had been stolen. She went back up the short flight of stairs, past a bedroom, to a study. Here she gasped, as she saw box files in heaps on the floor, their contents scattered like feathers from a pillow.

She stood still for a while and then turned to Tom. ‘If you're behind this in any way—’

‘For God's sake—’

‘I will get in my car, drive to the nearest newspaper office and give them the story that will ruin the reputation of the UN – and you. Do you understand me? All I have to do is tell them the truth of what happened here – and what kind of man the UN killed yesterday. After that, I'll make sure you're prosecuted for murder and robbery.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘No wonder you wanted to cut a deal.’

‘Now, why don't you just calm down? If anyone should be trying to cut a deal here, it's you.’

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

‘It means that there's a few things for you to explain too.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like the fact that the number of a known arms dealer was on your father's cellphone. Like the
fact that a gun favoured by assassins and hitmen was hidden in his hotel room.’

Something passed across Rebecca Merton's face, but it was so brief, so fleeting, Tom couldn't catch it. Was it doubt or shock or panic? It was gone too quickly for him to tell.

The pair of them stood there for a full three or four seconds, facing each other and saying nothing, like medieval knights ready to joust, until finally she stepped backwards and sat on what had once been her couch. She remained very still, as if thinking through a decision. Finally, she sighed heavily and then spoke in a voice that was new and quiet. ‘Listen. I think you need to know the truth about my father.’

At last, thought Tom.

‘There's something you need to read, but I can't—’

‘Is this what you're looking for?’ Tom produced Gershon Matzkin's journal from his case.

‘Oh, thank God.’ She grabbed the book and held it to her chest, her eyes closed, like a mother clutching a child lost in the park. Then her eyes opened into a wide stare. ‘Where did you get this?’

‘It was a mistake. I thought it was mine.’ He took out his own, near-identical notebook and held it up. ‘I was going to come right back here and give it to you.’

She held the book tight again, her face a picture of relief. He half wondered if she was going to thank him for inadvertently ensuring this heirloom
had been kept safe from the break-in. But then she looked at him hard, her gaze powerful enough to make his muscles weaken. ‘I don't know whether I can believe a word you say.’

There was silence before she spoke again. ‘Did you read it?’

He hesitated. ‘Bits.’

‘Well, now I'd like you to read it properly.’ And she placed the book in his hands.

She went back upstairs where he soon heard the scraping and banging of furniture being moved and objects being returned to their rightful places.

He wondered if her plan had been to keep this book, this story, a secret. She hadn't mentioned her father's past when he had made his first visit here, even though it would have silenced him if she had: a suicide bomber, indeed. Would she have spoken about it eventually? Or did it take his mentioning of the concealed weapon, the assassin's gun, to make her feel the need to exonerate her dead father?

He flicked through the pages, finding the place he had reached when Sherrill phoned. He let his eye skim across the pages.

I carried the same message to ghetto after ghetto: ‘Auntie Esther has returned.’ Everyone understood what it meant, that we Jews did not face mere slavery or a random death here and there, but a plan of complete extermination. My job was to tell the Jews of Europe that the Nazis wanted there to be no more Jews in Europe …

Tom turned the page.

You never knew who was going to help. Sometimes a peasant woman would find me in a barn and give me a hunk of bread. But once, in Krakow, it was a doctor, a pillar of the community, who tipped off the authorities when he saw a young boy – me – slip into the ghetto at night.

…We thought once we had escaped the ghettoes and had made it to the forests our troubles would be over. But no. We learned that even if we all hated the Nazis, the Polish or Lithuanian resistance could still find time to hate the Jews …

Tom flicked through the next few pages, scanning for anything which might shed light on the circumstances of Merton's death more than sixty years later.

… I had somehow found my way back to Kaunas, or at least the forests outside. I met up with the handful of resistance fighters who had survived. Their uniform was no uniform: perhaps a coat stolen from a Russian, boots taken off a Lithuanian, a gun bought from some Polish black marketeer. I joined them and we did what we could, blowing up a bridge here, derailing a train there. We killed the enemy in ones and twos. On a very good day, tens.

Tom skipped to the next page.

…It was in the forest that I met my Rosa. She was older than me, but I was an old man no matter my age. To be a Jew in Europe in those years was to be old in the world …

… Rosa had met someone who survived the Ninth
Fort. They said that the Nazis had not even needed to press-gang the local Lithuanian boys to take part in the mass killings: they had volunteered eagerly, including, of course, the Wolf. They all wanted to take a turn, firing bullets into the backs of naked Jews. Rosa told me the ghetto was finally cleared on July 8 1944. The last Jews to survive were sent off to Dachau. ‘There is no point going back to Kaunas,’ she told me. ‘There is nobody there. They are all dead.’

There was a space on the page, as if to denote the passage of time. Good, thought Tom: after the war.

Those of us who had survived were the only ones who understood each other. We could look into each other's eyes and see the same darkness. We wandered across Europe, looking for each other. Those of us who could not forget what we had seen. Those of us who were determined to—

The facing page was blank. Tom turned it, only for it to come loose in his hand. He looked up, hoping Rebecca had not seen him damage the book she had hugged like a baby. He wedged it back in, but as he did, he noticed the next page and the one after that also came loose. He held up the book, to examine the binding.

He could see what had happened. He remembered the same problem with his childhood exercise books: tear out one page from the front and a corresponding page from the back would come loose. It always happened where a book was bound down the middle. To be sure, he followed the page
he was reading, to see if its other half was intact. It wasn't. Indeed, each of the last five or six sheets was ragged along its edge. Several pages of this notebook were missing, ripped out.

He read again the last line of Gerald Merton's testimony. There was nothing that came after it, just a sentence as elusive as the man himself.

Somehow we found each other… those of us who were determined to—