Heritage (39 page)

 

‘It was well planned,' Fritz said thoughtfully. ‘He must have bribed a guard to smuggle the cyanide capsule into the prison.'

‘Clever,' Klaus agreed, and he nodded, feigning interest. The news of Hermann Goering's suicide that very morning had meant little to him. ‘The others will no doubt be envying his escape.'

They were seated in the comfortable armchairs of Fritz's office having a Cognac, as they occasionally did at the end of a work day when Fritz felt in need of a chat. The spacious office, with a lounge area and a bar in the corner, was at the rear of the clinic, well away from the public surgery, dispensary and consulting rooms. It was private and soundproof and housed a separate bedroom and bathroom, occasionally serving as Fritz's quarters, although he maintained a modest apartment nearby. Clandestine meetings were sometimes conducted in the office, but the majority of Odessa business took place upstairs above the clinic where the first floor, complete with offices and a private surgery and operating theatre for Nazi use only, was a hive of activity. Few were invited into the personal domain of Fritz von Halbach. But Fritz made an exception for Klaus. Klaus Henkel was the only man at the clinic whom he considered his intellectual equal.

‘Yes, I'm sure they would have preferred a more dignified end.' Fritz scowled as he poured himself a second hefty Cognac. ‘Von Ribbentrop, Streicher, Keitel, Sauckel and the others, they're to be hanged like common criminals. And in a gymnasium, I believe. Where the Americans were playing basketball only days ago! Two gallows to be used alternately. The indignity of it – it's disgraceful!'

Klaus gave another sombre nod, as if he cared. For the past week, the world headlines had been screaming that the twelve found guilty were to be hanged. He hadn't heard Fritz's inside information about the gymnasium or the twin gallows, but what did it matter? If a man was hanged he was hanged. Who cared where or how it took place? Fritz was obsessed with the Nuremberg trial, and Klaus was bored. It was October 1946, and the trial of the major war criminals, or rather those who had been captured and indicted, had been dragging on for nearly a year now. This was only the beginning, he thought – there would be other trials to follow, and they could go on for many years to come. There'd be dozens more found guilty – it was a foregone conclusion – and they'd all be executed, which was a pity because they'd only been doing their duty. But what was the point in talking about it?

‘And they're soon to start on the trials of the Nazi physicians,' Fritz continued, outraged; he'd barely drawn breath. ‘Twenty-three doctors have been charged.'

Klaus's ears pricked up at the mention of the doctors' trial. ‘Any further news of Josef?' he asked. Beppo was the only one he was interested in.

‘Mengele is still in Bavaria, I believe, on a farm near Rosenheim,' Fritz said. ‘According to the underground reports, he's relatively safe, but the sooner we can get him to Buenos Aires the better, for his own safety and for the cause. We need men like Mengele: respected leaders; Nazis who will inspire others.'

Klaus drained his glass; Fritz had lost him again. He preferred it when they discussed football – both were avid followers – or even their respective patients and medicine in general; Klaus enjoyed his work at the clinic and valued the expertise of Fritz's opinion. But tonight the man's mood was obviously one of ideological fervour, as it quite often was, so Klaus picked up the bottle that sat on the coffee table between them and poured himself another Cognac. He'd get a bit drunk and let Fritz rant for a while, he thought, then he'd go to Oswaldo's and find himself a whore for the night.

True to form, Fritz did rant. The talk of Nuremberg and the mention of Mengele had wound him up.

‘It is the duty of men like us, Klaus,' he declared, ‘men like you and me and Mengele, to fulfil the Führer's prophecy and pave the way for the Nazi Fifth Column in the Western Hemisphere. Universal chaos will consume the world, just as Hitler prophesied, and it will emanate from right here in Argentina where they hate the United States.'

He rose to pace the room, one hand behind his back, the other gesticulating with his brandy balloon. Klaus noted that, for all his elegance, Fritz's behaviour on occasions was reminiscent of the Führer himself.

‘When Goebbels pronounced that Argentina had the power to form a union of the South American nations,' he continued unabated, ‘Juan Perón, as War Minister, openly agreed, and now that he's President, we must ensure that a South American alliance remains his personal ambition. To the Allied nations, and the world at large, Germany appears crushed, and those who believe they have vanquished us forever are relishing the publicity of the Nuremberg trial …'

Fritz skolled his Cognac in one hit, fired anew by his anger over the latest reports from Berlin.

‘… but the indignity and the wrongful retribution afforded our leaders will be of no consequence in the end. If we have Perón in our pocket and work together for the common cause, the consolidation of Allied victory itself will be meaningless. When class is set against class and nation against nation, chaos will reign as the Führer said it would, and Germany will rise again in all its military force.'

Fritz was more passionate than ever tonight, Klaus thought. Goering's suicide and the fate of the others had obviously affected him deeply.

Klaus did not share Fritz von Halbach's fervour. The Reich was as dead as its condemned leaders, in his opinion, and Fritz's plans for the future meant nothing to him. He listened attentively nonetheless, interjecting now and then and nodding at all the right times. But, as he continued to study von Halbach, he wondered how a man of such gifted intellect, a man so good-looking, so elegant and sophisticated, could be such a pedantic bore.

In his mid-forties, Fritz von Halbach was a walking advertisement for his life's work as a plastic surgeon. Fair-haired, blue-eyed and Aryan to the core, he was the handsomest of men and appeared in his mid-thirties. His body was fit, his skin unblemished, and Klaus had thought, upon their first meeting, that perhaps one of his peers had performed some expert surgical rejuvenation. He'd surreptitiously searched for any telling signs, but there were none.

Klaus envied Fritz his youthful appearance. The man was over a decade his senior, and yet it was Klaus who looked the older of the two. His rapidly greying hair was successfully disguised with henna, but it was not so easy to disguise the evidence of a year's dissipation. His skin was sallow these days, a result of the fine Cuban cigars he'd come to enjoy, and his body, in which he'd taken such pride, was thickening from a surfeit of alcohol and rich food, indulgences he'd previously denied himself. At first he'd tried to resist the impact of his lifestyle, cutting down on his excesses and physically working his body, but of late he'd abandoned all forms of self-discipline. Buenos Aires had seduced him. The hedonist had won over the disciplinarian.

‘Get on with your life, enjoy it while you can,' the voice of the hedonist whispered to him daily. ‘You're thirty-three years old, you've devoted the prime years of your youth to the Reich, you deserve the right to indulge yourself.'

He no longer attempted to resist the voice of the hedonist. It spoke the truth after all: he had served his Führer, body and soul; he had earned the right to a life of his own.

He leaned back in his chair and lit up a cigar, and he joined in the conversation for the next hour. He talked of the Reich's history and offered views which he knew concurred with Fritz's, even though he despised the man when he spoke of his devotion to Nazi Germany. How had Fritz von Halbach served the Reich? Had he faced death? Had he killed for his Führer? No, Klaus thought with contempt, he'd been little more than a fundraiser, a conduit to the wealthy. But he was a powerful man, and it was wise to maintain their close relationship, so Klaus played the game accordingly.

From the outset, he had found it easy to manipulate Fritz von Halbach. He'd observed the man's two principal weaknesses. Von Halbach was vain and he was obsessed, and Klaus had indulged him on both counts, always engaging his intellect, careful not to appear obsequious. Von Halbach was an arrogant man who'd led a privileged and protected life, but he was no fool. It had been relatively simple, and at times Klaus had felt like a puppeteer. He'd rather enjoyed it.

Not tonight, he thought an hour later as he lit a second cigar. Tonight his role of puppeteer was proving tedious.

It was ten o'clock when he left.

‘Goodnight, Fritz,' he said at the door. ‘It's been a most pleasant evening.'

‘Goodnight, Umberto.'

Fritz was adamant that all aliases be religiously maintained. Even during the official meetings held upstairs, a man was always referred to by his new identity. If the habit was observed in private, it avoided public lapses.

When Klaus had gone, Fritz emptied the two cigar butts from the ashtray into a paper bag which he crumpled and placed in the rubbish bin, then he carefully washed out the ashtray. He didn't smoke himself, although most of his contemporaries did. Personally, he found it a filthy habit and the smell annoyed him, but he was prepared to suffer the discomfort in exchange for Klaus's company. It was a relief to find an intellect equal to his own; he'd been starved for conversation the past several years. And he and Klaus made such a good team, serving the cause as they did with a common fervour. Fritz was delighted that Klaus Henkel had arrived in Buenos Aires.

 

Klaus cut through the cramped back lanes of the working-class
barrio
of La Boca, passing brightly painted, multi-coloured houses with corrugated iron roofs, and poky
cantinas
in which families dined noisily. He always walked to the clubs and bars, leaving his recognisable red Peugeot parked at the clinic; it seemed wiser that way, and besides, he'd probably get drunk.

He turned the corner into the main street where the football stadium towered high and splendid over
la Piccola Italia
as La Boca was known. The stadium was the pride and joy of the
barrio
, and indeed of Buenos Aires. With a seating capacity of 50,000, it had been opened only seven years before and affectionately named
La Bombonera
because it looked like a giant chocolate box. He would go to the match with Fritz this Saturday, he thought, and then he would enjoy the man's company. It was the one time they shared a common passion.

Fifteen minutes later, he was in the neighbouring
barrio
of San Telmo where the cobblestone streets teemed with revellers. Tables spilled out onto the pavements and he had to sidle past the diners. Rows of early nineteenth-century colonial buildings which had once housed affluent Spaniards were now tenements, the wealthy having long before deserted their opulent mansions. But, even in their shabbiness, the ornate stone buildings, with their arched entrances and decorative columned windows, remained impressive. In the tiny upstairs apartments, families lived cheek by jowl, but at street level, lined up competitively and touting for business, were the affluent cafes, bars, clubs and
cantinas
.

Klaus headed directly for Oswaldo's. He'd frequented many tango halls and clubs during his early days in Buenos Aires when the eroticism of the music and the dance had first claimed him, but Oswaldo's Tango Club, where the musicians were superb and where a number of the dancers were discreetly available, had become his firm favourite.

The entrance to Oswaldo's was nondescript – two large wooden doors set in the rear of an alcove beneath the stone arch of a building. But inside was a different matter.

Klaus nodded to the doorman.

‘
Buenas noches, señor
,' the man replied as he opened the doors and stepped to one side.

The music assailed Klaus's senses as soon as he entered. On a rostrum at the far end of the wooden parquetry dance floor a seven-piece combo was playing ‘The Blue Tango' with all the fiery passion and seductive melancholy peculiar to the tango.

‘Buenas noches, señor.'

A pretty girl in a flared peasant skirt and off-the-shoulder blouse smiled flirtatiously as she guided him to a table.

‘
Buenas noches
, Marie-Luisa.'

He knew her. He'd invited her home with him a number of times, but she'd always charmingly refused, so he'd given up trying. She was obviously not a ‘working girl'. But he tipped her well, encouraging her flirtatiousness, which he enjoyed.

The drinks waiter arrived and Klaus ordered a beer, feeling dehydrated from the Cognacs he'd had with Fritz and the walk from La Boca. He also ordered a whisky chaser and the mandatory bottle of cheap sparkling wine which masqueraded as champagne and which the management sold at an exorbitant price. Then he sat back and watched the couples on the dance floor.

In the garish light of day, Oswaldo's might have looked shabby, but at night its allure was magical. The dance floor was surrounded by candlelit tables, and the slowly turning mirrorball overhead cast ever-changing patterns on the terracotta-hued walls. In each corner stood clusters of huge potted palms, indirectly lit to give a jungle-like appearance, and next to the band's rostrum was a spangled curtain leading backstage. When an exhibition dance was announced a spotlight would hit the curtain and the girls would make a spectacular entrance.

Those on the dance floor were a mixed bunch. Professional dancers partnered men who sought out tango halls for the eroticism they offered, but there were couples who had come simply to dance. Some were young, some middle-aged, and here and there, disguised by the half-light and their own vivacity, were some who could only be described as elderly. With the exception of several of the men partnering the professional dancers, all were accomplished. It was not surprising – the modern tango had been born in Buenos Aires. A combination of the Spanish tango and the milonga – a risqué Argentine dance – it had been considered flagrantly sexual and had been socially unacceptable for years. Now it seemed everyone in Buenos Aires could dance the tango.