The Bible of Clay (53 page)

Ayed Sahadi stood just a few feet from Clara and Dr. Najeb, straining not to miss a word of the conversation. Gian Maria was next to him, ready to help Clara in any way he could.

Clara stood up straight, pulled back her shoulders, and wiped away her tears with the back of her hand, leaving a streak of sand across each cheekbone. She could not show weakness at a time like this. Her grandfather had warned her—men moved only to the sound of the drum and the whip.

"Ayed, double the guard around the hospital. My grandfather has had a setback, but he'll come through it. Dr. Najeb is seeing to that," she said, looking fixedly at Salam Najeb, daring him to contradict her.

"Yes, madam," the foreman murmured.

"And no one stops working, do you hear?"

"I'll stay with you here for a while," said Ayed.

"You'll do as I say. Go to the site to ensure the men keep up their pace."

"Mr. Tannenberg instructed me to stay with you," Ayed said stubbornly. He thought for a moment she was going to hit him—her eyes blazed in anger.

Then, in a very soft voice, she repeated her order: "Ayed, when you're certain that everything is under control and all the men are working, you can come back. Do you understand me?" "Yes, madam." "That's better."

Clara whirled around and strode purposefully back toward the hospital tent, followed by Gian Maria, who put his hand on her shoulder.

"Clara, I don't know whether your grandfather was a Christian, but if you like
...
if you like
...
I could administer the last rites to help him in his journey."

"Last rites?"

"Yes, the last sacrament. Help him to die as a Christian, even though his life has not been a Christian one. God is merciful."

"I'm not sure my grandfather would consent to that if
...
if he were conscious."

"I just want to help him, help you. It's my obligation. I'm a priest; I can't see a man who was born a Christian die without offering him the Church's last comfort."

"My grandfather didn't believe in anything. I don't either. God has never been a part of our lives; he just wasn't there, we had no need for him."

"Don't let him die without the last rites," insisted Gian Maria.

"I'm sorry, Gian Maria, I can't let you do that—he never told me to call a priest for him. If I let you perform the last rites over him, it would be
...
a sacrilege."

"What are you saying?" the priest protested.

"I'm saying my grandfather will die as he lived. If your God exists and is merciful, as you say he is, then it won't matter to him whether my grandfather had the last rites or not."

She turned on her heel and went into the tent. She wasn't going to subject her grandfather to any ceremony without his permission. The truth was, she had no idea what the last rites consisted of. She wasn't Catholic, or Christian at all—or Muslim either. God had had no place in either the Yellow House or their home in Cairo. Her grandfather and father had never talked to her about God. For them, religion was a thing for fanatics and the ignorant masses.

Gian Maria just stood there, not knowing what to do. He decided to stay close by; he would pray to God to enlighten Clara and show her the way.

March had come in like the proverbial lion; the days were longer and the stifling heat rose with the added hours of light. The call from Ahmed Husseini, when it came at last, was a godsend.

Picot was smiling broadly after their conversation. The government

had granted the team official permission to remove the artifacts from Iraq. But only for an exhibition, Ahmed had added, and one for which Picot and Clara would be co-directors. Furthermore, Picot was to sign a document confirming his responsibility for every piece and, naturally, guaranteeing the return of everything to the Iraqi people.

If they were ready—and Picot had assured him that they would be—the helicopters would pick them up in one week, at dawn on Thursday. They would be taken to Baghdad and from there to the Jordanian border. In ten days at most, they'd be home again.

Clara greeted the news with indifference. Her only concern was her grandfather, and she couldn't have cared less what they'd decided in Baghdad, although sometimes she told herself that she needed silence. She yearned to be alone in the saffron-colored land of their excavation, without Picot and Marta and Fabian and their colleagues. She longed for the solitude that one can find only among one's own people.

Miraculously, Alfred seemed to have survived the cerebral hemorrhage, although Dr. Najeb told her that the improvement was probably deceptive and only temporary.

Her grandfather still could not talk, and he could hardly move. Sometimes he seemed to recognize Clara, but other times his eyes seemed to stare vacantly into space, blind to those around him.

"The master needs to get out of this hospital," Fatima kept saying after her own drawn-out convalescence; she was convinced that Tannenberg would be safer under her care than in the hospital tent, but Dr. Najeb stood his ground.

What pained Clara most was not being able to find her grandfather in those distant lands he seemed to be inhabiting now. Still, she almost never stirred from his side; she didn't dare go out to the excavation site, although Marta informed her of their progress daily.

One afternoon as she sat there holding his hands between her own, the old man began to babble—German, she thought, but she couldn't understand a word of it.

Tannenberg seemed agitated, and he tried to move; anger filled his eyes the few times he found the strength to open them. Dr. Najeb had no explanation for what was happening, and Clara refused to let him administer a sedative; she was convinced that her grandfather was still capable of fully recovering his speech. She was surprised to see him look with interest at his surroundings; he appeared for the first time to actually take it all in. Then she laughed when she saw him smile weakly.

"Grandfather," she whispered. "Can you hear me? Do you know who I am? Grandfather, please, speak to me. Can you hear me?"

Tannenberg's eyes opened wide. He recognized the woman sitting beside him, who seemed to be talking, although he couldn't hear her. Yes, it was Greta, even though he didn't remember her coming to this place with him. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, smelling the air; he felt full of life, even if his wife insisted on babbling on, distracting him from this very pleasant moment.

44

in mauthausen, it seemed that spring would never

arrive. It was cold, and the prisoners, more dead than alive, sensed that something was about to happen. Their guards were on constant, uneasy alert and, with each new day, less concerned with their prisoners' fate—they shot the second someone stumbled.

Alfred Tannenberg was contemplating the camp from the window of Zieris' office. Night had brought a freeze, and the sentinels in the watchtowers were rubbing their hands together to keep warm. Alfred and Heinrich had arrived just over an hour earlier and had gone immediately to the commander's office to submit their new orders. Zieris had listened with curiosity, not daring to question the two well-connected officers too closely. He would try to find out on his own why they were being sent on missions to undisclosed locations outside Austria.

As soon as they left Zieris' office, Heinrich and Alfred went to their warm homes in the village, which stood in such contrast to the hideous conditions of the adjoining camp.

In less than two hours, Heinrich had packed his bags and gathered up all his personal effects. Fraulein Heines, his housekeeper, had shed a tear upon learning that the polite SS officer was leaving, probably never to return, but she was never one for maudlin sentiments, so she

quickly pulled herself up and busied herself helping him pack his things into a large trunk. Then, as they said good-bye, he slipped a generous roll of bills into her hand; it would tide her over, he said, until she found another house to which she might lend her excellent services.

A few minutes later, Heinrich was banging on the door of Tannenberg's house. When his friend came to the door, he saw immediately that something was amiss.

"What's wrong?" Heinrich asked, unable to conceal his alarm at Alfred's odd expression. He knew that Greta, Alfred's wife, was expecting a baby, but the due date was still two months away.

"Greta
...
is not well, not well at all. I've sent for the doctor. I hope she doesn't lose the baby; she'd never forgive herself.
..."

"Come, don't say that! Let me see her."

"Come in, but don't disturb her; the servant is helping her."

"Then I won't stay. But remember, Georg wants us out of here by tomorrow."

"Don't worry—you go on to Berlin and get your plane to Lisbon.
I...
I will see what I can do, but for now I have no choice but to stay here."

"Georg said we must leave immediately!"

"Georg doesn't have a pregnant wife. I'll do what I can—but for the moment, I can't leave. But go, please, go, Heinrich. I won't rest easy until I know you are all safe."

They embraced tightly. They were bound not just by their childhood and university years but also by their shared service at Mauthausen, which had marked them forever. They had made other people's pain their greatest occupation—to such a degree that they had lost count of the number of prisoners they had personally tortured and killed.

The doctor was slow in coming, and when he did arrive, Alfred told him he would pay dearly for the delay. Greta was screaming in agony, and the servant's efforts to allay her pain had proved useless.

For an hour, Alfred waited in the kitchen, drinking cognac, while the doctor struggled to save the lives of his wife and child. He prayed not for God's aid but for the resources to invent a new plan to get out of Austria as soon as possible.

When he saw the doctor at the door and the servant cowering behind him, weeping, he knew that it had not gone well. He got up out of his chair and approached the doctor, waiting for him to speak first.

"I am sorry, Captain Tannenberg; I could not save the child, and your wife . . . Her condition is very delicate. She should be moved to a hospital; she has lost a great deal of blood. If you leave her here, I don't believe she will live."

"Was it a boy
...
or a girl?" Tannenberg stammered, his face red with rage. "A girl."

Alfred Tannenberg slapped the doctor, who recoiled instantly. He had never had the courage to stand up to an SS officer, much less one like this, whose eyes glared with cruelty and brutality without bounds. So he simply stood there, his cheek red from the slap and the shame, his ear ringing.

"Call for an ambulance—now!" screamed Tannenberg. "And you!" he shouted at the servant. "Go to my wife!"

The woman rushed out of the kitchen, already familiar with her master's abuse. Greta, only half conscious, was moaning, calling out to her lost child.

The ambulance took an hour to arrive, and by then Greta had entered a state of deep unconsciousness. By the time they reached the hospital, she was cold and still and the only thing the doctors could do was certify her death.

Tannenberg was infuriated, not by the loss of his wife and child, but rather at having lost precious hours to escape. Georg had made it clear that time was against them.

Now he had to notify Greta's parents and wait for them to come to the funeral, which would take at least two days. At least, he thought, Heinrich and Franz had gotten away. He would have to stay until Greta was buried; otherwise, he would have to answer to his powerful father-in-law, Fritz Hermann, which was tantamount to answering to Himmler himself. Until Germany collapsed completely, those were the men who pulled the strings of the dying Reich.

He returned to his house and ordered the servant to wrap Greta's body in a shroud. Despite his misgivings about the match planned by his father years ago, she had been a good and loyal wife who had never disappointed him, giving in to all his whims without question or protest. It had taken them several years to conceive—a daughter, the doctor had said—and Greta had been delighted. He had even come to celebrate the idea of having an heir and namesake and was strangely moved that Greta was carrying a child within her. He pictured it blond, with alabaster-white skin and sky-blue eyes, smiling and happy. A perfect child of the Reich.

The commander of Mauthausen was most sympathetic when he learned of Greta's death, and though he questioned whether Alfred's mission outside Austria could wait, Tannenberg simply informed him that his father-in-law, Fritz Hermann, would be arriving at any time and that he should make appropriate arrangements to receive a man in Himmler's inner circle.

Zieris understood the message and did not press, although he did tell Tannenberg a secret.

"A few hours ago I received a telephone call from Berlin. The Red Cross has been calling Herr Himmler very insistently; they want to visit Mauthausen. They have been trying to gain permission to visit the camps for months. I have friends who tell me that the Reichfiihrer is attempting to negotiate with the Allies. I fear that all is lost. The Russians have broken through our lines and occupied part of Germany, and the Allies are about to take Austria. But I imagine you know all this, do you not?"

Tannenberg said nothing; he merely stood at the commander's desk and stared at him.

"It's a shame you're going. A contingent of SS officers is coming to help us evacuate the camp; we must dispose of some of the prisoners. This must look like . . . well
...
a camp for prisoners, not. . . what we've turned it into. Hartheim Castle is going to be made an orphanage. And we are to erase all traces of the gas chambers and crematoria. We have so much work ahead of us—we could have used your help. We don't have much time."

Herr Hermann and his wife wept inconsolably over the death of their daughter and premature granddaughter. Now that the Reich was crumbling, Tannenberg realized that his once-powerful father-in-law was just another man, unaware that shortly after the funeral Alfred would be fleeing the country forever.

When the Hermanns, more stunned than anything else, left to return to Berlin, Tannenberg secured the documents that Georg had given him in a leather traveling wallet. Then, with a small bag in which he had carefully placed the two tablets from Haran and a few articles of clothing, plus two leather satchels—one filled with hard currency and the other with rings, watches, and jewelry pilfered from the prisoners in the camp—he prepared to leave Mauthausen forever.

A car and driver were waiting for him at the door of his house. He left without a word to his servant, nor did he salute the soldier who was to drive him to Switzerland.

When they arrived at the border, Tannenberg smiled with relief. The minute he arrived in Zurich he would find his parents, but he had no intention of staying long. Once he had met the contacts Georg had made for him, he would leave immediately for Cairo. But first he must reach Zurich and adopt the new identity his friend had invented for him.

His parents had moved into a small, quiet hotel near the center of the city, an enviable place where agents from all corners of the world could witness the fall of the Third Reich from a safe distance.

His father, overcome with emotion, embraced him with relief. His mother burst into tears over the death of Greta and their child.

"How long will you be staying?" his father asked. "In Berlin you told me only that we would see each other here and that you had been given a delicate mission."

"I'll be here only one or two days, just long enough to find a seat on an airplane for Lisbon or Casablanca, and from there to Cairo."

"Cairo? Why do you have to go to Egypt?"

"Papa, I shouldn't have to tell you that we've lost the war."

"Don't say that! Germany can still win. Hitler will never surrender."

"Please, Papa, you agreed to come to Switzerland because you were aware of the situation."

"I did it because you convinced me it was better to wait out the war here, but I haven't given it up as lost."

"Well, you might as well—the sooner you recognize that, the better for the family. I know you'll want to go back when it's over, but if I were in your place, I wouldn't. The Allies will hunt down everyone who has played any sort of role in Hitler's campaign, and they will have their revenge. It's best to accept reality; that's why I'm going to Cairo. I will start a new life there; I am leaving everything behind. I can do no more for Germany."

Disbelief and disappointment washed over Herr Tannenberg, who looked incredulously at his son.

"You're leaving us too?" his mother asked him point-blank.

"Mama, we must go our separate ways now. I cannot take you with me; if you heed my advice, you will stay here in Zurich. You have money here, enough to live comfortably for the rest of your lives. If you go back to Germany after the war, you will lose everything."

"Will you be in touch with us?" his mother asked.

"Yes, of course, Mama. But I'm going underground; I'm going to change my name and take on a new identity. So it won't be easy at first, but I'll be in touch when I can, when it is safe to do so—without endangering you and Papa."

His father paced the room, reflecting on his son's words.

"I have spoken to Georg's and Heinrich's parents; Franz's are in Geneva," he said.

"I know, Papa. Georg made meticulous arrangements. If I were you, I would think about starting a business, something that would allow you to settle in Switzerland, keep you busy. And I would do more than that—I would start telling everyone that you are very disappointed in Hitler, who has driven Germany to ruin, that you feel you were deceived."

"That would be despicable!"

"It would be accepting reality. Within a few months, Hitler will be the Antichrist; the Allies will have tried and hanged him. They will hunt down everyone who has collaborated with him. Distance yourself while you still have time."

"I thought that the SS had inculcated a sense of honor in you," his father said reproachfully.

"What the SS taught me was to survive, and that is exactly what I am going to do."

"What will you do in Cairo, my son?" his mother asked softly.

"Get married as soon as possible."

"My God! Your wife died four days ago!"

"I know, Mama, I know. But there is no point in the pretense of mourning for six months. I have to stop being Alfred Tannenberg; I must start a new life. And in order to do that I need someone who can help me grow into my new identity."

"You will no longer call yourself a Tannenberg? You are ashamed of your name?" his father screamed, his face red with anger.

"Of course I am not ashamed of my name. I will always think of myself as Alfred Tannenberg. But I don't want to face the firing squad either. So for the time being, it's best not to call attention to myself—an SS officer can hardly go unnoticed."

"Son," his mother insisted, "tell us what you are going to do in Cairo—what do you need? You can ask us for anything."

"I need money—Swiss francs, American dollars, whatever you can give me, Papa. As for what I'm going to do . . . Heinrich, Georg, Franz, and I have decided that we're going to go into the import-export business, transporting and trading in antiques if possible. But that won't happen until later; the first thing to do is get to Cairo, find the contact Georg has arranged for, and disappear into the background until the war is over. Finding a family who will take me in—that I can marry into—is the best way to cement a new identity."

That night he had dinner with his parents and sisters, along with Heinrich's and Georg's parents. His friends' parents were as worried as his own, although Georg's parents were somewhat relieved to know that their son was with his uncle, on his way to the United States.

They all resisted the idea of becoming exiles, and so they talked about returning to their homes as soon as the war was over. They were convinced that the Allies would not try civilians; if they did, most of the adult population of Germany would be prosecuted.

"You'll see," said Alfred. "The future leaders of Germany will be among the political prisoners who are in the work camps today, unless someone has the foresight to shoot them all."

Two days later, his uniform exchanged for an impeccable civilian suit, Alfred Tannenberg said good-bye to his parents. Deep inside, he knew he would never see them again. He could never return to Germany, so whatever the fate of his parents, their paths were irrevocably diverging.