Field Gray (38 page)

GERMANY, 1954

W
e remained behind until all of the POWs had marched off to the camp and most of the local people had left the station. Vigée was, I think, impressed that I had insisted on being there until the last; and, of course, he was quite without a clue that the real reason had much more to do with my trying to keep out of sight. Before we climbed into the Citroën that would take us back to our pension in Göttingen, Moeller handed me a twenty-page list of names and ranks and serial numbers.

“All of the men who were in that train,” he said redundantly.

I tucked the list into my coat pocket and glanced around the station ticket hall and beyond, onto the platform where those whose dashed hopes of seeing some long-lost loved one remained to the bitter end. A few of these people were in tears. Others just sat alone in quiet and stoic grief. I heard someone say, “Next time, Frau Kettenacher. I expect he’ll come the next time. They say it might be another year before they’re all home. And that the SS will be the last.”

Gently, the owner of the voice—some local pastor, it looked like to me—helped an old woman to her feet, collected her missing-person sign off the ground, and guided her toward the platform exit.

We followed at a respectful distance.

“Poor soul,” muttered Moeller. “I know how she feels. I have an elder brother who’s still a prisoner.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” I said. “Suppose he’d turned up here? What would you have done?”

Moeller shrugged. “I was sort of hoping he would. That’s one of the reasons I got put forward for this job. But now that I’ve seen that refugee camp, I’m not so sure. There must be better ways of treating our men, Herr Gunther. Don’t you agree?”

I nodded.

“They don’t do so bad,” said Grottsch. “Every week, the camp commander at Friedland gets hundreds of letters from single women all over Germany who are looking for a new husband.”

The five of us squeezed into the car and set off north for Göttingen, some fifteen kilometers away.

Sitting in the back, I switched on the courtesy light and nervously scanned the list for the names of any others from Johannesgeorgenstadt. And it didn’t take long to find the name of SS General Fritz Klause, who had been the SGO at the camp. It was beginning to look as if the radiation at the camp hadn’t been nearly as lethal as I had been led to believe. Then again, a man can use hate for his enemy as a blanket just warm enough to keep him alive through even a Russian winter.

“I wish someone would write and offer to marry me,” said Wenger as he drove the car. “Or, at the very least, offer to take the place of the wife I already have.”

“I wonder what they’ll think,” said Moeller. “About the new Germany.”

“I imagine they’ll think it’s really not quite German enough,” observed Grottsch. “That was my impression when I came back from a British POW camp. I kept looking for Germany. And all I found was new furniture, cars, and toys for American boys.”

“Turn the car around,” I said. “We have to go back.”

Vigée, sitting beside Wenger in the front seat, ordered him to pull up for a moment. Then he turned in his seat to look at me. “Found something?”

“Maybe.”

“Explain, please.”

“As we were leaving, there was a woman back at the station seeking information about her loved one. She had written all of his details on a sign.”

“Yes,” said Vigée. “What was her name?”

“Kettenacher,” I said. “But there was also a Kettenacher who was on the train. Who’s on this list prepared by the Red Cross.”

“It’s not an uncommon name in this part of Germany,” said Moeller.

“No,” I said firmly. “But Frau Kettenacher’s son was in the Panzer Corps. He was a Hauptmann. A captain, same as me. Richard Kettenacher. Fifty-sixth Panzer Corps. Last heard of in the battle for Berlin.”

“He missed his mother in the crowd,” said Moeller. “It happens.”

“And what about all his comrades?” I asked. “Would they have missed her, too?”

“Go back,” Vigée told Wenger urgently. “Go back immediately.”

Wenger turned the car around.

“Let me see that list,” said the Frenchman.

I handed it to him and pointed out the name.

“What do you think we should do?” he asked. “Go straight to the camp? Suppose he slips away before he gets there?”

“No,” I said. “He’s here because he needs to be official. He needs some papers. Otherwise, the Russian state security people could have smuggled him across the border in Berlin. He needs his discharge papers. Ration cards. An identity document. All of that in order to enter German society. To become something new. He’s not going to slip away.”

I thought for a moment.

“We need to speak to the real Captain Kettenacher’s mother. That old lady we saw at the railway station. We need her to give us a photograph of her son. So that when you and Moeller here go to the camp tomorrow and he tries to throw some sand in your face, you’ll be able to deal with it by being able to produce a picture. You can leave asking her to me. I am, after all, a representative of the VdH.”

“You said that in a way that implied you thought you wouldn’t be coming to the refugee camp,” said Vigée. “Why?”

“Because I think you need to keep me in reserve,” I said smoothly. “Think about it, Émile. You arrest Kettenacher on suspicion of really being de Boudel. He denies it, of course. So you take him to the Pension Esebeck and show him the real Kettenacher’s photograph. He still denies it: There’s some mistake. An administrative error. There were two Captain Kettenachers. You let him talk himself into a corner. That’s when I step out from behind the curtain and say ‘Hello, Edgard. Remember me?’ I’m your ace, Émile. But you mustn’t play me until the end.”

Vigée was nodding. “Yes. You’re correct, of course. But how will we find Frau Kettenacher.”

I shrugged. “I’m a detective, remember? If finding people was difficult, they wouldn’t ask policemen to do it every day of the week.” I smiled at Moeller. “No offense intended, Inspector.”

“None taken, sir.”

“So where am I driving?” muttered Wenger. “Suppose the old lady doesn’t live in Friedland? Suppose she already left town?”

“That pastor seemed to know her,” said Vigée.

“Yes, but there’s no church in Friedland.”

“There is one in Gros Schneen,” said Moeller.

“Head back to the station,” I said. “We’ll see if anyone remembers them there. If not, we can then decide what to do.”

The stationmaster, a stooping, etiolated figure, was sweeping up after the crowds. His flower bed had been trampled and, as a result, he could have been in a better mood. He shook his head when I asked him about Frau Kettenacher, but he seemed to remember the pastor all right.

“That was Pastor Overmans, from the church in Hebenshausen.”

“Where’s that?”

“A couple of kilometers south of here. You can’t miss it. There’s even less in Hebenshausen than there is here in Friedland.”

Wenger drove south, and we soon found ourselves in a village that lived down to the stationmaster’s description. We were just in time to see a bus leaving the village square, and the pastor and the old lady, still carrying her missing-person sign, walking away from the bus stop. Behind the bus stop was a largish half-timbered house, and behind the house was a small square church tower. The pastor and the old lady went inside the house and some lights were turned on.

Wenger stopped the car.

“Moeller,” I said. “You come with me. And don’t say anything. The rest of you wait here.”

The pastor was surprised to see us there so late, until I explained that I was from the VdH and that we’d missed Frau Kettenacher at the station.

“I try to see all of the families in this part of Lower Saxony who have a missing loved one,” I said. “But I don’t think I’ve met the lady before.”

“Ah, that’s because she’s from Kassel,” explained Pastor Overmans. “Frau Kettenacher is from Kassel. I’m her brother-in-law. She’s been staying with me in order that she could be at the railway station tonight.”

“I’m very sorry that your son wasn’t on the train,” I told her. “In the hope of avoiding further disappointments, we’ve been pressing the Russians to provide more details of who they’re still holding. And when these POWs might be released.”

The pastor, a brick-faced man with white hair, glanced around the somberly furnished room at the sagging heap of a woman who was sitting on an inadequate-looking chair. “Well, that would be something, eh, Rosa?”

Frau Kettenacher nodded silently. She was still wearing her coat and a hat that looked like an air-raid warden’s helmet. She smelled strongly of mothballs and disappointment.

I continued with my cruel deception. If I was correct and Edgard de Boudel was indeed using the name of Hauptmann Richard Kettenacher, it could only mean one thing: that the real captain was dead and had been for some considerable time. I managed to persuade myself that his cruelty and the cruelty of the Russian intelligence service that had put together this legend was crueler than mine, but only just.

“However,” I said weightily, “the Soviet authorities are not known for the efficiency of their record keeping. I know—I was a prisoner myself. When our men are repatriated, it’s the German Red Cross and not the Russians who establish who is actually being released. For this reason, we’re in the process of compiling our own records of who is still missing. And while this may not seem like the best moment to be asking questions like this, I wonder if I might take a few details of the loved one still missing.” I smiled sadly at the pastor. “Your nephew, is it?”

“Yes,” he said, and repeated the missing man’s name, rank, and serial number, and the details of his war service.

I noted these down conscientiously. “I won’t take up too much of your time,” I said. “Do you have any personal documentation? A pay book, perhaps? Not every soldier kept his pay book on him like he was supposed to. A lot left them at home for safekeeping so that their wives could claim the money. I know I did. Or perhaps a military service record book. A party card. That kind of thing.”

Frau Kettenacher was already opening a brown leather bag that was the size and shape of a small coracle. “My Ricky was a good boy,” she said in a strong Saxonian accent. “He wouldn’t ever have disobeyed the rules about carrying his pay book.” She took out a manila envelope and handed it to me. “But you’ll find everything else in here. His National Socialist Party personal identity card. His SA identity card. His craftsmen’s guild certificate. His ID for commercial travelers—he trained to be a metalworker, see? And then became a traveling salesman selling the things he used to make. His German state travel passport. That was for the time he went to Italy on business. His bombing victim’s pass—Ricky’s apartment in Kassel was bombed, you know. And his wife was killed. A lovely girl, she was. And his military service passbook.”

I tried to contain my excitement. The old lady was giving me everything that could have identified the real Richard Kettenacher. Several of the documents contained not just photographs but personal signatures, blood types, details of medical examinations, his size of gas mask, helmet, cap and boots, a record of wounds and serious illnesses, and military decorations.

“The inspector here will issue you with a receipt for these documents,” I said. “And he’ll make sure that they’re returned safely to you.”

“I don’t care about them,” she said. “All I care about is having my Ricky returned safely to me.”

“God willing, yes,” I said, pocketing the missing man’s life history.

As soon as Moeller had written one out, we left the pastor and the old lady alone and walked back to the car.

“Well?” asked Vigée.

I nodded. “I got everything.” I brandished the old lady’s envelope. “Everything. Kettenacher’s double couldn’t get past this lot. That’s the great thing about Nazi documentation. For one thing, there was so bloody much of it. And for another, it’s virtually impossible to contradict.”

“Let’s hope it’s not the real one,” said Vigée. “If he was blind, then perhaps he couldn’t see his mother. And perhaps her eyes are not so good and she couldn’t see him.” He looked through the documents. “Let us hope you’re right about this. I don’t like disappointments.”

GERMANY, 1954

T
he following morning, I remained at the pension in Göttingen while Vigée and some of the others went to arrest the man posing as Kettenacher. I asked if I might be allowed to go to church, but Grottsch said that Vigée had given orders that we should remain indoors and await his return. He said, “I hope it’s him so that we can go back to Hannover. I really don’t like Göttingen anymore.”

“Why? It’s a nice enough little town.”

“Too many memories,” said Grottsch. “I went to university here. My wife, too.”

“I didn’t know you were married.”

“She was killed in an air raid,” he said. “In October 1944.”

“Sorry.”

“And you? Were you married before?”

“Yes. She died, too. But much later on. In 1949. We had a small hotel in Dachau.”

He nodded. “Dachau is very lovely,” said Grottsch. “Well, it was, before the war.”

For a moment we shared a silent memory of a Germany that was gone and probably would never be again. Not for us, anyway. And certainly not for our poor wives. Conversations in Germany were often like this: People would just stop in the middle of a sentence and remember a place that was gone or someone who was dead. There were so many dead that sometimes you could actually feel the grief on the streets, even in 1954. The feeling of sadness that afflicted the country was almost as bad as it had been during the Great Depression.

We heard a car draw up outside the pension and Grottsch went to see if they had our man. A few minutes later, he came back looking worried.

“Well,” he said. “They’ve got someone. Yes, they’ve got someone, all right. But if it is Edgard de Boudel, then he speaks German better than any Franzi I ever met.”

“Of course he would,” I said. “He was fluent even when I knew him. His German was better than mine.”

Grottsch shrugged. “Anyway, he insists he’s Kettenacher. Vigée’s confronting him with the real Kettenacher’s documents now. Did you see Kettenacher’s party ID? The man had donation stamps going back to 1934. And did you see those dueling scars on his cheek in the photographs?”

I nodded. “It’s true. He was everyone’s idea of what a Nazi should look like. Especially now that he’s dead.”

“Why do I get the feeling that you weren’t a party member yourself?”

“Does it really matter now? If I was or I wasn’t?” I shook my head. “As far as our new friends are concerned—the French, the Amis, the Tommies—we were all fucking Nazis. So it doesn’t matter who was and who wasn’t. They look at all those old Leni Riefenstahl movies, and who can blame them?”

“There was never a moment when you believed in Hitler, like the rest of us?”

“Oh yes. There was. For about a month in the summer of 1940. After we licked the French in six weeks. I believed in him then. Who didn’t?”

“Yes. That was the best time for me, too.”

After a while we heard raised voices, and a few minutes later, Vigée came into the room. He looked cross and out of breath, and there was blood on the back of one hand, as if he’d hit someone.

“He’s not Richard Kettenacher,” he said. “That much is certain. But he swears he’s not Edgard de Boudel. So. It’s up to you now, Gunther.”

I shrugged. “All right.”

I followed the Frenchman down to the wine cellar where Wenger and Moeller were guarding our prisoner. The photographs the Amis had shown me had been black-and-white, of course, and blown up after being shot from a distance so that they were a little blurred and grainy. Doubtless the real de Boudel would have gone to great lengths to disguise himself. He would have lost some weight, dyed his hair, grown a mustache perhaps. When I’d been a uniformed policeman in the twenties, I’d arrested many suspects on the basis of a photograph or a police description; but this was the first time I’d been obliged to do it in order to save my own neck.

The man was sitting in a chair. He was wearing handcuffs and his cheeks were red, as if he’d been struck several times. He looked about sixty, but he was probably younger. In fact, I was certain of it. As soon as he saw me, the man smiled.

“Bernie Gunther,” he said. “I never thought I’d be pleased to see you again. Tell this French idiot I’m not the man he’s looking for. This Edgar Boudel he keeps asking me about.” He spat on the floor.

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?” I said. “Tell him your real name and then perhaps he’ll believe you.”

The man frowned and said nothing.

“Do you recognize this man?” Vigée asked me.

“Yes, I recognize him.”

“And is it him? Is it de Boudel?”

“Who is this Boudel fellow, anyway?” said the prisoner. “And what’s he supposed to have done?”

I nodded. “Yes, that’s a good idea,” I told the prisoner. “Find out what this wanted man’s done, and if it turns out to be rather less heinous than what you did yourself, then put your hands up for it. Why not? I can see how you could think that might work.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gunther. I’ve spent the last nine years in a Russian POW camp. Whatever it is I’m supposed to have done, I reckon I’ve paid for it several times over.”

“As if I care.”

“I demand to know this man’s name,” said Vigée.

“How about it?” I told the prisoner. “We both know you’re not Richard Kettenacher. I suppose you stole his pay book and just swapped the photograph on the inside cover—stuck it on with some egg white. Russians didn’t usually pay too much attention to the corner stamps. You figured a new name and a different service would keep the dogs off your trail, because after Treblinka you knew that someone would be coming to look for you. You and Irmfried Eberl, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Neither do I,” complained Vigée. “And I’m beginning to get irritated.”

“Permit me to introduce you, Émile. This is Major Paul Kestner. Formerly of the SS and deputy commander of the Treblinka death camp in Poland.”

“Rubbish,” said Kestner. “Rubbish. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“At least he was until Himmler found out about what he was doing there. Even he was horrified by what he and the commandant had been up to. Theft, murder, torture. Isn’t that right, Paul? So horrified that you and Eberl were kicked out of the SS, which is how you found yourself in the Wehrmacht, defending Berlin, trying to redeem yourself for your earlier crimes.”

“Nonsense,” said Kestner.

“You may not have Edgard de Boudel in custody, Émile, but you do have one of the worst war criminals in Europe. A man who is responsible for the deaths of at least three quarters of a million Jews and Gypsies.”

“Rubbish. Rubbish. And don’t think I’m unaware of what this is really about, Gunther. It’s about Paris, isn’t it? June 1940.”

Vigée frowned. “What about it?”

“He tried to have me murdered,” I said.

“I knew it,” said Kestner.

Vigée nodded at the door. “Outside,” he told me. “I need to speak with you.”

I followed him out of the wine cellar, up the stairs, and into the little walled garden by the canal. Vigée lit us each a cigarette.

“Paul Kestner, huh?”

I nodded. “I imagine the UN War Crimes Commission will be pleased to have him in custody,” I said.

“You think I give a fuck about any of that?” he said angrily. “How many fucking Jews he killed. I don’t care. I don’t care about Treblinka, Gunther. Or the fate of some lousy Gypsies. They’re dead. Too bad. It’s not my problem. What I do care about is finding Edgard de Boudel. Got that? What I care about is finding the man who tortured and murdered almost three hundred Frenchmen in Indochina.” He was shouting now and waving his arms in the air, but he didn’t grab me by the lapels, and I sensed that while he might have been angry and disappointed, he was also wary of me now.

“So we’re going back to that refugee camp at Friedland tomorrow and we’re going to look at every man there and we’re going to find de Boudel. Understand?”

“It’s not my fault that he’s not our man,” I shouted back. “But it was the right call. And, assuming your information is correct and de Boudel really was on that fucking train, then it stands to reason he’s in the camp.”

“You’d better pray he is, or we’re both in trouble. It’s not only your ass, it’s mine, too.”

I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll do that.”

“What?”

“Pray. Pray to get out of this place for a while. To get away from you, Émile.” I shook my head. “I need some room to breathe. To clear my head.”

He seemed to control himself and then nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault—you’re right. Look, take a walk around town. Go to church again. I’ll send someone with you.”

“What about him? Kestner?”

“We’ll take him back to the refugee camp. The German authorities can decide what to do with him. But me, I don’t have any time for the UN and their stupid War Crimes Commission. I don’t want to know about it.”

Muttering in French, he walked off, probably before one of us felt obliged to try to hit the other again.

I found Grottsch, who to my surprise tried to excuse the Frenchman with the explanation that his daughter was ill. We collected our coats and went outside into the autumn sunshine. Göttingen was full of students, which served to remind me that my own daughter, Dinah, was probably in her first year of university by now. At least I hoped she was.

Walking around a bit, Grottsch and I found ourselves beside the ruins of the town’s synagogue on Obere-Masch Strasse, burned to the ground in 1938, and I wondered how many of Göttingen’s Jews had met their ends in Treblinka at the hands of Paul Kestner and if nine years in a Russian POW camp really was sufficient punishment for three quarters of a million people. Perhaps there was after all no earthly punishment that was equal to a crime like that. But if not here on earth, then where?

Our footsteps took us back to St. Jacobi’s Church. I stopped to look in the window of a shop opposite, but when I walked away I found I was alone. I stopped and glanced around, expecting to see Grottsch coming toward me, but he was nowhere to be seen. For a moment I considered escape. The prospect of visiting the Friedland refugee camp and being seen by Bingel and Krause was no more appealing than it had been the previous day, and about the only thing that prevented me from walking straight to the railway station was a lack of money and the knowledge that my French passport was back at the Pension Esebeck. I was still debating my next course of action when I found I was closely accompanied by two men wearing neat little hats and short dark raincoats.

“If you’re looking for your friend,” said one of the men, “he had to sit down and rest. On account of the fact that he suddenly felt very tired.”

I was still looking around for Grottsch, as if I really cared what happened to him, when I realized that there were two more men behind me.

“He’s sleeping it off in the church.” The man speaking had good German, but it wasn’t his first language. He wore heavy-framed glasses and was smoking a metal-stemmed pipe. He puffed, and a cloud of tobacco smoke obscured his face for a moment.

“Sleeping it off?”

“A hypodermic shot. Nothing to worry about. Not for him and not for you, Gunther. So relax. We’re your friends. There’s a car around the corner waiting to take us on a little ride.”

“Suppose I don’t want to go for a ride?”

“Why suppose anything of the kind when we both know that’s exactly what you want? Besides, I’d hate to have to give you a shot like your friend Grottsch. The effects of thiopental can linger unpleasantly for several days after injection.” He had my arm now and his colleague had the other, and we were already turning the corner onto Weender Strasse. “A new life awaits you, my friend. Money, and a new identity, a new passport. Anything you want.”

The door of a large black saloon swung open ahead of me. A man wearing a leather jacket and a matching cap was standing behind it. Another man, walking a few steps ahead of me, stopped at the car door and turned to face me. I was being kidnapped, and by people who knew exactly what they were doing.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Surely you’ve been expecting us,” said the man beside me. “After your note.” He grinned. “You can’t imagine the excitement your information has caused. Not just here in Germany, but at headquarters, too.”

I bent forward to get into the car and felt someone’s hand on the top of my head, just in case at the last moment I tried to resist and bumped my head on the door frame. Cops and spies all over the world were always thoughtful like that. Two men outside the car stayed on the alert, looking around nervously until everyone who was supposed to be in the car was in the car, and then the doors were closed and we were moving and it was all over, with no more fuss than if we were all going on an unexpected shopping trip to the next town.

After a few minutes, I saw that we were driving west and breathed a sigh of relief. At least now I knew who was kidnapping me and why.

“Just sit back and enjoy the journey, my friend. From here on in, you’re five-star all the way. Those are my orders, Gunther, old buddy. I’m to treat you like a very important person.”

“That will make a pleasant change from when I was last a guest of you Americans,” I said. “Frankly, there was something about it I didn’t like.”

“And what was that?”

“My cell.”