The Commissar (51 page)

We are on our way back to regiment, and there we get a reception equal to that of the prodigal son.

Oberst Hinka is delighted. When the interrogation officer is finished with the two Russians, wild activity commences in 4 Panzer Army.

Porta is resting in Helena’s brothel, getting up strength to go over and tell Chief Mechanic Wolf the sad news of where the gold has ended up.

Some of the girls are dancing closely together to the music of a balalaika. Porta is the only male guest. A Tartar girl is sitting at the bar showing off her beautifully-formed legs. Her narrow eyes regard him with interest. Soon she sways over to him and sits on the edge of the table. Her narrow black skirt rides up to well above the edge of her stockings.

‘You have measles?’ she asks, letting a long, slim finger slide over the red paint spots which are left as a reminder of Tiny’s marker shell.

‘Only German measles!’ answers Porta sadly.

‘German measles?’ she trills. ‘That is catching?’

‘Only for Germans,’ answers Porta, looking national.

‘You are prettiest tankman I ever see,’ she whispers, giving him a look which could have melted a glacier. She slips down from the table and presses her body intimately against him. ‘Would you like to come and see my room?’ she asks, taking his hand, and pressing it between her warm thighs.

Porta smells her. Cheap perfume and old beer mixed. A lustful gleam comes into his small eyes.

She takes a small sip from his glass.

‘You like to fuck now?’ she asks, sighing deeply. She takes another tiny sip from his glass. ‘I am good fuck! When you go with me it will be first time in your life you really fuck!’

The door bangs open, and Chief Mechanic Wolf marches in, his spurs jingling and his Brosini riding boots flashing.

‘So here you are, then. Thin and crazy. Don’t give a sod about telling any of us others how things’ve gone off! I’ve
been lookin’ for you everywhere!’ He turns round and sees the Tartar girl. She is back on the table edge again with her skirt so high you can see she is wearing no underclothing.

‘Buy yourself a piece o’ cunt, then! Slant-eyes there’s all right! Then we can get over to my place! I think we must have a lot of things to talk over!’

‘You’ve been to the barber’s,’ grins Porta, running his hand over the girl’s crutch. ‘And you’ve had a shave too,’ he smiles to her.

‘Like it?’ asks Wolf, in a self-satisfied voice. He passes his hand over his coal-black hair, which is shiny with brilliantine. ‘My barber’s famous, you know! Had a shop at “Kempinski”. Even rich old bald bastards with no more’n five hairs left used to go to him to get permed. “War Minister” Sally sent him out here when the army finally found out they could use him in a war. As you can see he’s sculptured my hair in the latest Hollywood style!’

‘Well, well!’ said Porta, blowing smoke between the girl’s thighs. ‘I prefer the professor style myself, with a couple of balls of cottonwool stickin’ out overa feller’s ears. Makes you look clever!’

There is silence for a while. Porta blows smoke between the girl’s legs again, leans back in his chair and balances it on two legs. He pulls back his upper lip in a jeering hyena grin. It makes him look like a snarling dog. He has been practising it for a long time!

‘You gonna fuck, or you goin’ over to my place?’ asks Wolf, impatiently.

Porta puts his hands on the girl’s knees. Wolfs hand-sewn Brosini riding boots squeak.

‘Don’t waste my time with all that shit,’ he rasps, bitterly. ‘Come on! We’re off! You can fuck her some other time! If you live long enough that is!’ he adds, dropping his voice to a subterranean rumble. ‘I can tell you Sally’s on his way here from Berlin, and he’s got a couple of these sudden-death fellers with him!’ He stops speaking for a moment, and awaits a reaction to his sad news.

‘Really?’ answers Porta, looking as if he had heard nothing of any importance.

‘You fuck now?’ asks the Tartar girl, rubbing Porta’s crotch. ‘Better fuck than get shot! Come! We go this way!’

‘No we don’t!’ roars Wolf. ‘This is the way we’re goin’!’

A little way down the street Wolf stops again and stands in front of Porta with his British swagger-stick lifted as if he were going to hit him with it.

‘Listen ’ere, you shit, I don’t seem to’ve expressed myself clearly enough! I said Sally was on the way! And he’s determined that either he gets the gold he’s got a right to, or else you go off suddenly on a one-way ticket! I’m tellin’ you this as a friend.’

‘Both you and that imitation “War Minister” can go and get fucked!’ grins Porta, confidently.

Wolf does not answer, but contents himself with staring at Porta with a look which would have frightened away a poisonous snake.

They continue on down the street in silence, Wolf jingling his spurs and Porta banging down his hobnailed heels.

Without acknowledging either the growling wolfhounds or the icy-cold Chinese they stroll into Wolf’s lair.

‘Where did you put our gold?’ asks Wolf, before they have settled in their chairs.

‘Yes, what
did
I do with our gold?’ answers Porta thoughtfully, taking a bite of sausage.

‘That’s what
I’m
bloody askin’you,’ shouts Wolf, furiously. ‘I saw you arseholes come in, but even with a monocle I couldn’t see anythin’ but a fucked-up old museum exhibit of a T-34, and I can’t imagine there was space for both you lot
and
our soddin’ gold in that tin can!’

‘You’re right enough there, ‘Porta forces a smile. ‘There was only us and not as much as a grain of gold!’

Wolf walks slowly round the table.

‘You didn’t have to tell me
that
,’ he hisses, and smashes his British swagger-stick down so hard on the table that it breaks in two. Raging, he throws the pieces from him. ‘I’ve been over an’ had a look inside that Russian shit-bucket, and now
I want to know where you’ve hid our gold? You might just as well tell me now before Sally gets here! He ain’t got time to do a lot of talking with you! He’s gonna just say gold, an’ if you say there ain’t any then you’re dead! Where
is
the gold?’ he repeats in a roar, spittle flecking his lips.

‘Let me get a word in,’ smiles Porta, in friendly fashion. ‘That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you!’ He takes another bite of sausage and swills it down with
Slivovitz
. ‘The gold! Yes! A very sad affair that was. It’s gone. Been eaten up!’

‘Eaten?’ gapes Wolf. ‘Who the bloody hell eats
gold
?’

‘The earth,’ smiles Porta, mildly. ‘The earth ate our gold! Took it in, lorriesandall! Drivers and mates went down with it!’ He makes some slobbering sounds like a stopped-up sink and throws his arm’s so that Wolf can understand how the gold had gone down under the earth.

‘I
see
’, says Wolf, pressing his lips together into a thin line.

‘It sank down! You don’t
say
so! D’you think I’m a complete bloody idiot? You’re a lyin’ bastard, an’ that yarn of yours stinks of con! Jesus, I never heard anythin’ like it! The earth ate the gold
all
up! You ain’t the feller who wrote the
1001 Nights
, by any chance? Can’t you make up a better bleedin’ tale?’

Porta spreads out his hands resignedly.

‘I didn’t know the earth swallowed up gold, either,’ he admits, sadly. ‘But it
does
, though! I saw it with my own eyes, and it didn’t only take the gold, it took three tanks, four trucks and two motor-sledges in the same mouthful. For dessert it took thirty-two men and a whole bloody OGPU guard barracks. If you don’t believe me ask the others!’

‘A right lot to ask,’ yells Wolf, beside himself with rage. ‘They’re bigger bloody liars than you are! I might as well ask my dogs, an’ be satisfied with bow-wow for an answer. But let me tell you somethin’, you dirty bastardin’ son of an alley cat an’ a backyard bitch! If you don’t tell me where you’ve hid that gold I’m gonna tear your lyin’ tongue out an’ kick your balls straight up into your rotten brains!’ He gets more and more furious, crumples his favourite silk cap into a ball and tears at it with his teeth. Words come flying from his mouth
like bullets. When Porta takes another bite of sausage he snatches it from his hand and throws it against the wall. ‘Do you think you’re in a boozer?’ he screams. After a while he becomes so hoarse and out of breath that he is forced to stop.

‘Finished?’ asks Porta quietly, picking up the sausage from the floor. ‘Then let me explain! And if you want to lash anybody with that filthy tongue of yours then take it out on the Luftwaffe! They’re the shower that’s responsible for it all! They bombed the wrong place! It’s a wonder I came out of it alive, but, of course, you don’t care a shit about that!’

‘Too fuckin’ true I don’t!’ snarls Wolf, grinding his teeth.

‘Thought as much!’ says Porta apathetically, slapping a large piece of sausage on a slice of bread.

‘Like some rat poison to put on that?’ asks Wolf, nastily.

‘No thanks. Jam, though, if you’ve got it?’ smiles Porta ingratiatingly, dipping his sausage in a bowl of redcurrant jelly. ‘You ever hear of something called quick clay?’

‘Never,’ says Wolf. He stares blankly at Porta, whose jaws are working double time to keep the sandwich he has made from choking him.

‘Quick clay,’ explains Porta, gesturing with the hand which is holding his sandwich, and splashing redcurrant jelly on to Wolfs tailor-made uniform,’ is made up from silicon, sand an’ a lot of other shit in clay tubes that can hold together on the outside but are full of water, a hell of a lot of water, inside. So long as it’s left alone fuck all happens, but with certain kinds of disturbances, like, for example, bombs dropped by German knotheads, then all hell can break loose! The whole lot ofit turns into a bloody great pool of mud when the walls of the tubes break up! The more it gets shook up the worse it gets! The whole surface of the earth starts movin’ an’ everythin’ on it gets sucked down into hell. Trees, people, waggons, tanks and
gold
! I can tell you it was a very unpleasant experience, that lot was!’

‘I wish it’d been a hundred times worse,’ rumbles Wolf, viciously making himself a sugar sandwich. ‘Couldn’t you have hung on to our gold,
somehow
? You don’t let anything valuable as that slip through your fingers! I hope, for your
own sake, you can get Sally to believe your horror story! Otherwise something very nasty might happen to you!’

Sally arrives the next day. He has so little time to spare that he has himself flown from the airstrip in a Fiesler Storch which can land on the wide boulevard.

‘They tell me you’re up to something!’ he shouts as soon as he catches sight of Porta, although still a long way off. ‘But that
must
be a lie! You’re not that stupid!’

‘Drop dead!’ answers Porta, with a disarming smile, aiming his forefinger at him.

‘Let me hear it! What happened? Where’s the gold?’ demands Sally. ‘I don’t give a shit for your Grimm’s Fairy Tales stuff, and I want you to know I’ve brought three interrogation experts with me from Berlin! When they’ve had you and your pals under treatment you’ll confess it was you lot that nailed Jesus and the robber to the cross and stuck a spear in Him and gave Him vinegar instead of vodka like the pigs you are! What a shower!’

Arguing loudly they push their way into Wolf’s sanctum sanctorum. They are so excited they come close to fighting when they stick in the door, trying to go through it all three at the same time.

Sally strides up and down the floor, foaming with rage. With a flourish he pulls the oversized pistol he carries round to the front of his belt and unbuttons the flap of the holster. He changes his expression from one of anger to deep, fatherly perturbation and then back again. He shows his teeth in a horsy grin and bends confidentially down over Porta.

‘I think you’re lying! And d’you know what else I think?’

‘I’m no thought-reader!’ says Porta.

‘Shut up! I’ll do the talking!’ Sally roars. ‘I think you and that filthy Jew Commissar have put that gold somewhere, and are just going to wait till the warring powers have knocked the stuffing out of one another. Then you’ll take off and pick up
our
gold, and shit all over your good buddies here! See, that’s what I think, you greedy son of a bitch!’

‘Really?’ smiles Porta sarcastically. ‘Look at that, now!’

‘Defend yourself, blast you! And shut up about that cursed
quick clay,’ shouts Sally furiously. ‘Not even a drivelling idiot’d believe that! And let me tell you the risk you and your Jew Commissar are running with this crazy scheme! The morons over there know you’ve pinched the gold from under their noses, and now they’re looking for it. It’s enough to make ’em forget the world war! And before you know where you are the whole world’ll be after it! You’ll never be able to get rid of it! Even the sneaky bankers in Switzerland or Liechtenstein won’t touch it!’

‘The Mafia might!’ says Porta, laconically.

Sally sits down again, scowling, and digs out a large black cigar from his breast pocket, while he considers how to shoot Porta where it will hurt most.

‘Let me talk,’ says Porta placatingly. ‘And I’ll explain it to you so it can get through even that thick guard commander skull of yours! I know the gold’s red-hot, so I’d never dream of goin’ it alone. Believe me or not, the bloody earth’s swallowed it up! And all those shits from the OGPU and the Gestapo ain’t ever going to find it!’