Dry Bones (16 page)

“Where am I?” He smiled at the boys. Though he wasn’t sure by whom, he knew he’d been rescued.

The younger of the two smiled back. “
Nemluvím anglicky.
” He held up one finger. “
Jedna minuta.
” They hurried off. The damp, chilly hall was obviously part of a brewery.

A tall, haggard, gray-haired man with a goatee came from around the stack of barrels. “Please, stay seated.” Left hand behind his back, as if hiding something, he offered Dunne a weak handshake with his right. “Forgive me, we’ve no time for niceties. I spent several years in your country, in Pittsburgh, but there’s no need for you to know my name or where you are. If you fell into German hands, they’d get it out of you one way or another. You’ve already had quite an ordeal. You must have a strong constitution to have pulled through.”

“It’s been mostly thanks to my buddy.”

“Yes, your ‘buddy,’ Major Van Hull, he’s the one who told us where to find you.”

“He’s here?”

“Nearby—in surgery.”

“Surgery?”

“A shoulder wound, painful but not fatal, it must be attended to. He’s a brave man, or foolish, or reckless. Perhaps all three. None of us in the resistance had any idea you were in the area until a German sentry stopped your comrade. The major struck him with a cane and tried to grab his rifle. The German got off a shot and hit him, but the major beat him well beyond what was necessary to kill. He was fortunate our men were nearby when it happened. They had to pry this from his grip.” He brought his left hand forward. In it was the broken half of the hawthorn cane.

“The war is almost over. But the Germans still threaten to drown any resistance ‘in a sea of blood.’ Our people will pay the price for the murder of that soldier. That’s the way it’s been from the start—since the British and French sold us out at Munich. I was with the Czech Brigade in the Red Army until I was sent back to help organize the resistance. You’ve had your play-by-the-rules war in the west, but in the east, there’ve been no rules. The Germans sowed the wind, and now they reap the whirlwind.”

“Can I see Major Van Hull?” Dunne got to his feet.

“Tomorrow. We’re sending you both to Prague. It will be easier to hide you there, and we have word fellow agents of yours are working there.” He handed Dunne the remnant of the cane. “The major told me a little of your—how shall I put it?—your ‘adventures.’ I thought you might like this as a souvenir of Czechoslovakia.”

“Thanks. It might be a nice place to live, but it’s been a tough place to visit.”

“Soon it will be once again a good place to live
and
visit, free and independent, rid of Germans. Perhaps you’ll return as tourist instead of soldier. Meantime, we’ll see to it you’re fed and get some rest. You’ll also be able to have a hot bath and get cleaned up. Pardon me, I don’t mean to be insulting, but you don’t look like
the Americans we remember from the movies—groomed, well-fed, confident. You look as if you’ve spent the war in Poland or the Ukraine. As they say in Pittsburgh, you look like shit.”

Dunne fingered the piece of hawthorn: more shillelagh than wedding bough, as it turned out. “A bath would help change that.”

When it was dark, Dunne was loaded aboard an ingeniously designed transport. The bottom layer of hollow, permanently attached barrels formed a compartment able to hide several men. Atop were layers of barrels filled with beer. He was driven to a windowless basement. Behind a false wall was an apartment that contained a small sleeping area and a spotless tiled bathroom with porcelain sink, toilet, and tub.

A shy girl with blonde braids provided him a Swedish hollow-ground safety razor and Sheffield scissors. Dunne stood before the sink.
Mirror, mirror on the wall.
Thin, bearded, wary, worn-down visage stared back, distant descendant of the face he’d last seen in a mirror in Bari, twin to the myriad faces he’d passed on the road.

He lathered cheeks and neck, reaped his beard with the razor, cropped his hair with the scissors, and shaved what remained. He filled the tub with water so hot he had to gradually lower himself in. He fell asleep. The water was tepid when he woke. He emptied the tub and refilled it.

Clean clothes and underwear were laid out on the bed. The girl returned and hurriedly delivered a plate of sausage and potatoes and a tin container filled with beer. He wolfed the food and drink, lay down on soft, yielding mattress, pulled the down coverlet over his head, last conscious thought before sleep a memory: Niskolczi weeping.
I wasn’t sure a place like this still existed.

The same transport came for him in the morning. He climbed behind the faux barrels. Van Hull was already inside. He was obviously groggy from the painkillers he’d been given. He stared blankly at Dunne for several seconds. “Fin, is that you?”

“The new and improved me.”

“You look like death.”

“Yesterday, I looked like shit. I’m not sure death is an improvement.”

“It’s the shaved head.”

“You don’t look so hot yourself, Dick.”

“I guess we’re the sad-ass version of the Bobbsey Twins, Rack and Ruin instead of Flossie and Fred.”

The driver slammed the panel behind them. They lay in the darkness. Van Hull gently snored. Dunne slept fitfully, unsure how long they had traveled before the transport stopped and the motor was turned off.

A single escort in mechanic’s overalls led them out of their hiding place. It was night. He whisked them into the side entrance of a sprawling, multitiered structure with an imposing steeple-like dome. He used a flashlight to lead them through a series of marble hallways that echoed with their footsteps and down several flights of stairs. He extinguished the beam. A bare bulb hanging from the ceiling illumined a windowless basement room packed with empty desks and display cases.

Van Hull, weak and unsteady on his feet, sat on a desk. He gazed at the floor.

“You speak English?” Dunne asked.

Their short, muscular, expressionless escort didn’t answer.

Van Hull lifted his head. “
Sprechen sie Deutsch?
”

“
Ja, ich spreche Deutsch.
”

“
Gut.
” Van Hull nodded appreciatively. “
Wie heissen Sie?
”

“Jan Horak.” His stoic mien gave way to a torrent of words accompanied by animated hand gestures.

Van Hull stopped him to translate. “Jan Horak welcomes us to the National Museum. We’re in the heart of Prague, just off Wenceslas Square. The building is mostly empty for now. The collections were moved to storage to ensure they survive the war. It’s
the very last place the Germans would look. But the situation outside is volatile. The Russians are closing in, and the resistance is preparing to take on the Germans and liberate the city on their own. We are to remain here until our American comrades make contact.”

“Which American comrades?” Dunne sat beside Van Hull.

Without waiting for Van Hull to translate, Horak fished in the pocket of his overalls. “
Dies ist von der kameraden.
” He tossed a pack of cigarettes to Dunne.

Dunne studied the virgin cellophane. American smokes.
God shed his grace on thee
: Lucky Strikes. Horak handed Van Hull what looked like a calling card. “
Und so.
”

Carefully peeling away cellophane and tinfoil top, Dunne extracted three Luckies; handed one to Van Hull, one to Horak. They lit their cigarettes in the flame of Horak’s brass lighter. Van Hull examined both sides of the card Horak had given him. “It’s from the ‘
kameraden
’ who sent the Luckies.” On the front, beneath the gold embossed seal of the United States, was printed:

L
T
. C
OL
. C
ARLTON
B
AXTER
B
ARTLETT

D
IRECTOR OF THE
D
EPARTMENT OF
I
NFORMATION,

C
OMMUNICATION
& P
OLICY
A
NALYSIS

O
FFICE OF
S
TRATEGIC
S
ERVICES

On the back was a brief handwritten message:
The age of miracles has not passed! We’d given you two up for dead! Will make contact soon. Stay where you are for now.

“How did Bartlett get to Prague? I figured the Pear would fight the entire war from the bar at the Ritz, in Paris.”

Dunne returned the card. “Where the hell does he think we’re going to go?”

“Maybe I should ask Jan if we could borrow golf clubs and play a round at the local country club. But orders are orders. We’ll do as the Pear directs and stay here.”

Van Hull had another extended conversation with Horak that he summarized for Dunne as soon as the Czech had left. Berlin had fallen. Hitler was dead. The Red Army was at the gates of Prague, and coming from the west, General Patton was in striking distance. The Czech resistance was poised to take matters into its own hands and pay the Germans back for seven years of occupation and humiliation.

An hour later, Horak reappeared with a crew in tow. They brought two cots, bedding, and a supply of dried foodstuffs. He left them his flashlight and told them to stay where they were. When it was safe, he would come and get them.

They lay down on the cots. The silence had the morbid pervasiveness of a mausoleum. It was impossible to tell if it was day or night. They sat up with a start when the building shook as if hit by a bomb. Dunne used the flashlight. Dust from the ceiling circled in its beam like a flurry of snow. They made their way upstairs to an office on the first floor. Gunfire rang out. A tank rumbled by, rattling the window. There was a radio on the stand next to it. Van Hull turned it on and fiddled with the dial. The announcer spoke in rapid-fire style.

“What’s he saying?” Dunne asked.

“He’s speaking in Czech. ‘It’s over’—I think that’s what he’s saying.

“What’s over?”

“Wait. Now it’s in German” Van Hull translated: “‘The nightmare is over. Today, May sixth, Prague strikes for her liberation. Let freedom and justice prevail!’”

File 6704-A: Document Declassified and Released by Central Intelligence Agency, Sources/Methods Exemption 3B2B, Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, Date: 12/06/2000

***CLASSIFIED: SECRET. Folder 6704-A: DR. KARSTEN HEINZ IS HEREBY SEVERED FROM U.S. v. DR. KARL BRANDT et al. Custody is transferred to Central Intelligence Group, Division Headquarters, Berlin. Information herein not to be shared with unauthorized persons. 2/4/46.

Military Tribunal, Case 1, United States v. Dr. Karl Brandt et al., Folder 6704-A: Document No. 6, Background Notes and Preliminary Interrogation: SS-Hauptsturmführer Karsten Heinz (KH). Submitted by Col. Winfield Scott Thomas, M.D., U.S. Army, Medical Corps, Dept. of Psychiatry. Also present, Maj. Turlough Bassante, Special Agent, Counter Intelligence Corps. Nuremberg. 12/27/45.

C
OMMENTS:
I have been directed to undertake a preliminary interrogation and psychological assessment of Karsten Heinz, in preparation for his formal indictment as a defendant in the trial of German medical personnel, civilian as well as military, for crimes committed in the name of “scientific research” and “medical advancement.”

In Heinz’s case, the paper trail is extensive and damning. We are in possession, for example, of direct correspondence dated 2/12/44 from SS-Standartenführer Wolfram Sievers of the Forschungs-und-Lehrgemeinshaft das Ahnererbe to Himmler that states: “The war in the east makes it imperative we proceed expeditiously with the study of the Jewish race. By procuring the skulls of Jewish-Bolshevik Commissars, who represent the prototype of this devious and degenerate subspecies, we have the opportunity to produce a definitive document as well as mount a convincing scientific exhibit that will stand the test of time. I have already been in discussions with Dr. Karsten Heinz, an eminent racial researcher on staff at Auschwitz, who is convinced that he now has the materials at hand to establish an organic link between Judaism and Bolshevism.”

The interview was conducted in Heinz’s prison cell, a spare space that he keeps fastidiously neat. It contains a bed, desk, and two chairs. He was dressed in gray military jodhpurs, heavy gray woolen socks that reached up to his knees, black leather slippers, and a long-sleeved quilted undershirt.

Of stocky build and no more than five feet and three or four inches in height, Heinz is in full possession of his mental faculties. He displays a self-confidence that quickly shades into arrogance, a pronounced indication of the melding of his superego with that of the Third Reich. It is clear the operation of the superego supports rather than opposes the id’s desire for self-aggrandizement. A sadistic opportunist who is devoid of sympathy for his victims and dedicated to his own survival, he clothes his actions in terms of scientific idealism and admits no direct role in mass murder. His capacity for narcissistic rationalization in support of justifying his actions is limitless.

I
NTERVIEW
: When Maj. Bassante and I entered with a stenographer, the prisoner remained seated at the desk. I informed him both the Major and I spoke fluent German, but he indicated his preference for speaking with us in English. I told him that since the stenographer needed to be seated and I would be taking notes, I required his seat at the desk. (Maj. Bassante indicated his preference for standing.)

He quickly transferred himself to the bed. The smirk he had been wearing since we entered briefly gave way to a hurt look, which I surmised was less from my insistence on taking his seat than my failure to preface his last name with his rank (SS-Hauptsturmführer) or the honorific of “Herr Doktor.”

KH
: If that is your wish, Colonel Thomas.

WT
: It’s an order.

KH
: I’m a soldier who has always followed orders. That is the nature of our profession, is it not?

WT
: You are also a doctor who took an oath “to do no harm.”