Mephisto Aria (26 page)

“A lot of the unexpected,” Anastasia replied. “Raspin was shot. To death, it looks like. And then he burned. All hell broke loose. Then, when things began to settle and I reached Katherina, the commander showed up to arrest her. He backed off so she could get dressed, and that’s when we made the break. The ladder worked perfectly, by the way. Will they be able to trace it back to you?”

“Naa. I took it out of old storage. They don’t even know what’s down there. But once we get off the mountain, we’ve got to make up for lost time. I have to have the truck back in place and refueled before dawn.”

“Can I ask now to what I owe this rescue? And how did you both know I was in trouble?” Katherina judged it was the moment for explanations.

“Don’t ask me,” Johann grumbled. “I’m doing this because I’m bloody nuts.”

“He’s doing this because he’s an old friend of Boris,” Anastasia said. “From the East front days, right?”

“Yes. We worked together for the Ministry of Propaganda filming Wehrmacht victories. Regular Leni Riefenstahls, we were. I stayed in filming and Boris decided he could make more money in sound. Seems he was right.”

Katherina was warming to her rescuer. “Why didn’t you move west after the war? There was a lot more work with the Americans.”

“Not a chance.” He spat out the window. “I’m from Dresden. My family was there, plus all our relatives from the east. Refugees. They died in the firestorm. You can imagine how. After that I never wanted to shake hands with an American or Brit. Still don’t,” he added quietly, the rage in his voice obviously undiluted by time.

Katherina moved away from the dangerous subject of Dresden. “But I still don’t know why you thought I needed to be rescued in the first place. Even I didn’t know how crazy Gregory Raspin was until I was up on the rock with him facing a wall of flames.”

“Flames, eh? That sounds like the sort of theatrical touch he would like,” Johann said, full of contempt. “Looks like this one blew up in his face, so to speak. It was a fitting end. I hope they got it all on film.”

“How can you say that?” Katherina was shocked at the remark. “That’s so callous. He might have been unbalanced, but he didn’t deserve to be murdered. I feel sorry for him.”

“Don’t.” Anastasia joined the conversation again. “The man was vile. You have no idea what he used to do and what he was attempting to do to you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That’s what I was trying to rescue you from. Gregory Raspin used to be Peter Schalk, a sadist and a murderer.”

“Schalk? The man my father wrote about in his journal? How do you know?”

“Boris put the two together. When I translated the pages from Cyrillic and told him about Schalk, he insisted that he’d seen the man in Salzburg outside your dressing room.”

“How is that possible? They’re from two different worlds.” Katherina pulled the blanket up closer around her, fending off new, incomprehensible information.

“Believe me, it’s true. We checked the Salzburg anniversary program that has his picture. Boris was absolutely certain it was Schalk. You won’t doubt it either when you hear the story.”

“Of Gregory Raspin? You already told me he was a big investor.”

“Yes, that’s what he did with the money he acquired in the 1950s. After the war, while he was Peter Schalk, he not only ran a large black-market network, he also made pornographic films. Not the usual fare, but films involving torture and murder. Not faked murder, but real. At least in one or two cases, anyhow.”

“The kind of creepy shit that makes me ashamed to be a man,” Johann grumbled.

Anastasia went on. “The way Boris told it, the business started almost accidentally, when the Russians invaded Germany. I’m sure you’ve heard about the raping and the nailing of women to barn doors. Apparently at least once, someone made a film of it, and it was passed around before some Soviet officers found it and destroyed it. But Schalk evidently thought torture was a product he could sell, and he was right. He had women kidnapped, isolated women with no one who would track them down, and he found soldiers who were happy to accommodate him for the rape. With a little extra vodka, he’d have no trouble getting them to do the killing too. The woman belonged to the enemy, after all. The films became more and more sadistic, more and more gruesome, and all of them found audiences. Western troops, especially, paid a lot of money to see them. It excited them and at the same time made them feel superior to the Russian ‘animals.’”

Reflexively, Katherina drew up her knees inside her blanket. “But how did Boris know about them?”

“Boris made the soundtracks for them, all through the 1950s. He swears he recorded the tracks on order, without ever seeing any of the films. I mean, he knew it was pornography and assumed it was the ordinary variety. He made tracks of music, non-musical sound, moans, and so forth. Schalk never asked for sounds for the torture scenes. Maybe that part was silent, I don’t know. It sickens me to think about it.”

“Then how did he find out? Wouldn’t he have wanted to see the final product?”

“That isn’t how it worked in those days. He said he found out by accident when he heard about a showing at a place called Auerbach’s Cellar. He was curious to see how the film turned out, so he simply paid to go in and watch it. He said when the film, which was obviously amateurish, got to the end, he nearly threw up. Right after that, he broke all ties with Schalk.”

“Why didn’t he call the police?”

“I asked him that too, but he pointed out that he couldn’t. After all, he was implicated in the production. All he could do was walk away. Like your father did.”

“My father was involved in that?” Katherina could not keep the revulsion from her voice.

“No, not with the films. I don’t mean to suggest that. But he was part of Schalk’s general network. The team doctor. Eventually he must have also found out about the murders and the children, but he was just as unable to notify the police as Boris was. More so, since he was homosexual and faced certain jail time for that. And Schalk could be vindictive. Your father had to have courage to even walk away.”

“So that was going on in the 1950s, in the part of the journal that was torn out.”

“Yes, almost certainly by Raspin. He must have had an opportunity to pilfer the book. In any case, by the 1960s, with his network threatening to unravel, Schalk gave up the business. He had a fortune by then, of course, and invested it in the New Germany.”

“But why this opera then? Why me?”

Anastasia took her hand. “This was his magnum opus. Not a grainy black-and-white smuggled into basements for drunks, but a full opera in color, with an authentic setting, fire, and a famous high-class victim who would go along with the whole thing until it was too late. And it would be broadcast to millions all over Germany. Pornography as high art.”

“But he was known as the producer. He would have been arrested, ruined.”

“Not at all. First of all, if it had ended in gang rape, that alone would have made it a success. He couldn’t be held responsible for the behavior of drunken soldiers, especially Russian soldiers who already have the reputation. It would have shown up in the papers as ‘a terrible accident.’ He would have acted shocked and horrified, and the film would have been worth its weight in gold.”

“But the DDR would never have released it, in that case. Besides, the commandant said the Fernsehen DDR cameras had been turned off.”

Johann spoke up. “He was probably lying, to cover his troops, but even if they had shut them off or destroyed the footage, Raspin had a fourth camera of his own. My office lent him a cable for it. He would have enjoyed a certain notoriety for a while, claiming that he had ‘misjudged the savagery of his audience,’ and then begun marketing the film through some third party.”

“It’s grotesque,” Katherina said weakly.

Anastasia nodded. “I think that’s why your father refused to introduce you to Raspin. He suspected that he planned to use you in some awful way.”

“But why? He didn’t need the money anymore.”

“Money wasn’t the reason,” Johann added. “I only talked with the man a couple of times but I could see he was really obsessed. This ‘ultimate-opera’ project was the realization of some sick fantasy he’d carried around for years.”

Katherina was silent for a long while, shivering again. Anastasia fussed with the blanket, tucking the edges under Katherina’s legs. “There’s something else I have to tell you. I don’t know if it will bring you any peace, but one of Schalk’s businesses after the war, when he was still trading black-market goods, was selling war souvenirs. Objects from both sides: SS uniforms, concentration-camp objects, medals, passbooks, and most of all, small arms, both Nazi and Red Army. He specialized in sidearms, like the pistol that killed your father.” Anastasia paused, to let the implication sink in.

“I don’t think your father committed suicide at all. It probably was not even his gun. I believe Schalk murdered him after he refused to let him meet you. Schalk simply forced him outside at gunpoint, thinking to avoid being heard by the housekeeper, and shot him in the garden.”

Tears filled Katherina’s eyes. “Murder makes much more sense. There simply was no good reason for suicide, even if he was homosexual. After all those years, he didn’t have to fear blackmail any longer. Yes, I’m sure we can prove it now.” She stared for a while through the windshield, not seeing. “Imagine. My father, who called himself a coward, lost his life trying to protect me.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Anastasia said. “The police just never considered investigating for murder. Unless Raspin’s body is completely charred, they could get prints and match them with the gun. It seems unlikely, though, that the Vopos will cooperate with the West-German police.”

“So why are we running away? Why can’t we just explain everything to the garrison commander?”

“Ha,” Johann snorted. “Do you think for a moment anyone in the DDR government will admit they were tricked into signing a business agreement with a sadist, to broadcast a gang rape and possible murder? Anyhow, now that he’s dead and someone in the DDR’s own border guard apparently killed him, you can be sure the evidence will disappear.”

“How filthy it all is. You’re right. I just want to get out of here.”

“That’s the idea.” Johann finally turned on the headlights and pressed the pedal to the floor.

XXXIII
Accelerando

Katherina was grainy-eyed with exhaustion when they reached Wernigerode, but the clock on the dashboard of the van read only a little before two in the morning. They had arrived with time to spare at the featureless concrete building that was their destination. The metallic sign across the top row of windows read Fernsehen DDR/Wernigerode. There was no sign of life anywhere around the building when they pulled into the lot behind it.

When she and Anastasia descended from the service van, Johann was taciturn and businesslike, waving off their thanks.

“Just tell Boris we’re quit now. I don’t want any more of this.” With that he drove into a garage to park the van and remove all evidence of the night’s undertaking.

“The car’s over there.” Anastasia pointed toward a dark blue rental car parked half a block away from the television substation. “There’s a change of clothes for both of us in the trunk.”

The night-quiet of the street was suddenly broken by the sound of a truck engine. Before the two women could get out of sight, a military truck swung around a corner and rumbled toward them. They froze, caught in the truck’s headlights.

Katherina muttered, “Scheisse.” Her mind raced as she tried to think of a plausible explanation as to why a Soviet soldier and a half-naked woman in a blanket would be standing in the middle of the street at two in the morning. There was none. None whatsoever. Her instinct was simply to run, but Anastasia took hold of her arm.

“They’re Russians. Let me do the talking.”

Katherina frowned. “No argument here,” she muttered back. “Your uniform. Are you an officer, or what?”

“I have no idea. This is one of Anne’s costumes. Let’s just hope it’s dark enough so they don’t notice.” Anastasia adjusted her cap and tugged her tunic down over her hips.

The truck stopped directly in front of them and they both moved around to the side of it, out of the blinding headlights. Katherina could see now it was a Soviet troop carrier. The motor continued pounding noisily even in neutral, and the gray-painted fender, which rose almost to her shoulder, was slightly dented. At the rear, the truck bed was enclosed by low wooden siding. Poles at the four corners held a canvas roof that was rolled up, and some dozen men in field kit sat huddled beneath it. Most of them seemed to be hanging over one side staring at them.

The driver poked his head out through the truck-cab window and Anastasia saluted him. Katherina fervently hoped it was the right kind of salute. The two began talking in a rapid Russian and Katherina tried to detect signs of anger or suspicion. Would there be any point in running from twelve men with service rifles?

Anastasia’s voice had dropped to a lower register, below the pitch she had used for Octavian, but still high for a mature man. Would she be able to pull it off? What could she possibly be saying that would explain them?

Oh, hell. The driver was opening the cab door, stepping down onto the ground. He was dressed almost identically to Anastasia, except that he had a sidearm. A critical difference. He gawked for a moment at Katherina, and she realized, for the first time since fleeing the Brocken dressing room, that she was still in full stage makeup. Half naked and painted like a clown, she must have looked like a madwoman to him.

Anastasia seemed to realize the problem as well and laid her hand on the man’s shoulder, turning him away from the bizarre spectacle and guiding him toward the street corner. Was she giving Katherina a chance to flee in the other direction? She waited for a signal, anything that would tell her what to do. But Anastasia simply continued in Russian, gesticulating and pointing up the street.

When the two returned to the truck, they seemed to be arguing, though without anger. The driver kept repeating, “Nyet, nyet!” and Katherina’s heart began to pound again, ready for flight.