The Runner (34 page)

CHAPTER

41

S
OMETIME TOWARD DAWN,
I
NGRID
and Judge left the main road and navigated a series of dirt lanes, ending up in a small wood where they parked the jeep in a copse of birch trees. The night was silent, the air warm and misted with a fragrant dew. Ingrid was happy for the rest. Her bottom was sore from three hours of hard driving over untended farm roads. They’d stopped twice already, laying up for a quarter of an hour in torn-up barns, watching for any sight of Patton’s thugs. An hour ago, they’d crossed a paved thoroughfare and they’d been on it ever since, passing through the towns of Hochheim and Walldorf.

Shifting in her seat, Ingrid faced her self-appointed savior. She was ready to inform him that she was leaving here and now, that whatever wild intentions he harbored, he could no longer count on her participation, that she missed her son very much, and finally, that she was tired, hungry, and in a most unpleasant mood altogether. But before she could manage a word, he was leaning toward her, one arm beckoning her to come close, his commanding brown eyes imploring her to solve some unspoken misunderstanding.

“Major,” she said, crushing her back against the seat. “I beg your pardon.”

Judge eyed her queerly. “The map,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t reach it. Do you mind?”

Ingrid averted her gaze, embarrassed at her misperception, though not as relieved as she’d expected. Reaching beneath her seat, she found a well-creased map. Judge unfolded it, using her lap as well as his own as a table.
Damn him for not asking,
she cursed silently. There were numbers scribbled everywhere: this army, that corps, compass headings, phone numbers, she couldn’t tell what. The only legible marks on the whole bloody thing were the fat black lines dividing her country into four pieces.

“We’ve got to get to Berlin as quickly as possible,” he said, finger already tracing some imaginary course. “That’s where he’s headed.”

“Go,” she said. “But don’t expect me to come with you. I have a family. Pauli must be worried sick about me.”

“Pauli has Herbert and your sister. He’ll manage fine until you get back.”

“It’s not a question of managing,” Ingrid responded tartly. “Everyone in our country has been ‘managing’ for the last three years. Managing without enough sleep, without enough food. Managing without a husband or a brother or a sister. I am his mother. I will not allow him to
manage
without me.”

“If you go home, that’s exactly what he’ll be doing. And not for a day or a week but for the rest of his life.”

Frightened by his strident tone, Ingrid chose for her own one of a measured reserve. The clear-minded skeptic. Reason before emotion. Kant over Nietzsche. “You’re being a bit dramatic, aren’t you?”

“Am I?” Judge shrugged his shoulders, but his voice guarded its urgency. “You’re my only proof that Seyss is alive. Whoever strung that concertina wire across the road knows it. It wasn’t me they were after. It was you.”

She’d been privy to facts and suppositions. She’d borne terrified witness as his suspicions were proven correct, first in Heidelberg, then Griesheim. Still, she was unwilling to accept his conclusions, even if deep down she knew they were true.

“Are you saying they’ll be watching Sonnenbrücke? Don’t forget we already have our own bodyguard, Father’s personal jailers.”

Judge fixed her with his gaze, his brow knit in earnest disbelief. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

“How can you be sure he’s going to Berlin? Maybe he’s up and left the country?”

Judge shook his head as if he’d delivered the coming rejoinder a hundred times. “If he wanted to leave the country, he never would have gone to Munich, or to Heidelberg, or to Wiesbaden. Whatever his plan is, he’s stuck to it despite knowing we’re looking for him. Why should he quit now?”

“Guessing. Guessing. Guessing.”

“Then why are we hiding here? If Erich Seyss had left the country, no one would give a damn if you were alive or dead. No one would have killed von Luck. Those poor nurses would still be alive right now.”

“Erich has caused me enough pain,” she said. “I won’t allow him to interfere with my life any further.”

“Then why do you still care about him?”

“I don’t,” she parried reflexively. “Not a wink.”

“I see how you light up every time you talk about him,” Judge said. “How you sit a little straighter, how your voice jumps a notch.”

“Nonsense!” she said, and catching the accusatory cast to his eyes, saw she’d struck a jealous chord. She recalled his words on the drive up to Heidelberg. That he could believe for a moment that she still had feelings for Seyss enraged her. “Do you know why we never married? Do you?”

“No.” It was a whisper. He had offended. He was sorry.

“When an SS man wishes to marry, he must submit his intended spouse’s name to the SS Office of Race and Resettlement. There the woman’s genealogy is laid out on a family tree going back five generations. In my case, three was enough. My great-grandmother was a Jew. That makes my blood one-eighth Semitic—enough for the SS to classify me as a Jew. They refused to grant Erich’s request to marry me on the grounds that our offspring would tarnish the racial purity of the Thousand-Year Reich and he obeyed. Rather than transfer to a regular army unit where an officer is permitted to marry anyone he chooses, he obeyed. That’s what he does, Major. He obeys.”

Somewhere along the way she’d lost her reserve. Emotion had won out over reason. She’d been foolish to believe her heart could harness her head. And when Judge spoke next his voice had assumed the calm she’d abandoned.
This is what he does,
she thought.
He’s a lawyer. He persuades people.

“Tell you the truth, I don’t want to go to Berlin either,” he said. “Five hours ago, I went officially absent without leave. Patton doesn’t have to make up a reason to have me arrested anymore. I’ve done it myself. Any chance I have for returning to the IMT is shot, and so is my job back home. Attorneys with an arrest record aren’t generally welcomed before the bar. You don’t like Seyss. Fine. I hate him. But it’s beyond that now.”

Ingrid railed at his self-control, feeling her own slip another notch. “You can’t hate him. He’s done you no harm. To you, he’s just a shadow.”

“No,” said Judge, all emotion drained from his voice. “He’s hardly a shadow. Erich Seyss killed my brother.”

Ingrid stared at him, a floodtide of hate and disbelief and terror burning her cheeks. “I don’t believe you.”

“When I told you about the crimes Seyss was wanted for, I left out one detail: My brother was among the men he had killed. My brother was a priest, Ingrid.”

Eyes locked on Judge, Ingrid felt her stomach climb inside her chest, her breath leave her. The world shrank around her until she heard only the panoply of arguments desperately jockeying for position inside her mind. She needed to believe that the man she had loved was a soldier, not a murderer. Things happened in war. Terrible things. He was only following orders. There had to be an explanation. Hurriedly, she tried to scrape some words together on his behalf. The jilted lover would not be made a fool of a second time. But any defense she hoped to offer died stillborn in her throat, slain by the ice in Judge’s voice. Her chin trembled, then fell. “I’m sorry.”

Judge raised his face to the night sky and blew out an exaggerated sigh. “Don’t be. He ruined your life, too. Hell, he’s still doing it.”

“I’m not apologizing for Erich. I’m apologizing for myself. For my country.”

He looked at her, puzzled. “But you didn’t do anything.”

The words stung more than she’d expected. “That’s the point, isn’t it?”

Judge’s silence granted her the sense of guilt she’d been longing for. “Is that why you’re going to Berlin?” she asked. “For your brother?”

“No,” said Judge. “It’s not about Francis. Not anymore, at least. I’m going because I don’t have any other choice. Hell, even if I wanted to stop, I’d be arrested as soon as I showed by face at my billet. But it’s not a question of that either. Offer me the chance to go back to Paris, no questions asked, I’d turn you down flat.” He laughed a little, the moonlight casting a melancholy pall across his attractive features. “What I always liked best about the law was the black and white of it. You either did something wrong or you didn’t. You broke the law or you didn’t. Same thing now. If I don’t do anything, it would be like committing a crime.” He raised his head and Ingrid felt the power of his gaze. “Seyss is going to Berlin. I know it. Don’t you see? I can’t
not
do anything.”

“I suppose not.”

“But I need you to come, too. I don’t have time to learn my way around Berlin. You know Seyss, where he might go, where he might hide. You have a house there, don’t you?”

“Two. One in the city, one on the lake in Babelsberg.”

“And I imagine you spent some time there with him?”

“Yes.” The admission left her feeling dirty, the more so because of the respect with which Judge treated her. God, how he was different from Erich and Bobby. Neither of them would have asked her to go to Berlin, they would have bloody well ordered her. The comparison to her former lovers coupled with his close physical proximity made Ingrid see Judge in a new light, and she found herself wondering what a future with someone like him might be like. All she’d had to look forward to with Bobby was a role as loving wife and doting mother, a life no different from the one her mother had lived, and
her
mother before that. It was an existence built on her family’s wealth, standing, and service to the country—none of which counted for a damn any longer.

Feeling a desire to touch him, Ingrid leaned over and kissed his unshaven cheek. “I haven’t thanked you for saving my life.”

Judge brushed the spot, the hint of a smile lightening his anxious mien. “Does that mean you’ll go to Berlin?”

Ingrid bit her lip, wanting to say yes but hesitating and hating herself for it. Here was the chance her wounded conscience had dreamed of, the opportunity to act not as a German but as a woman true only to herself, and she was afraid to say yes. Staring into Judge’s eyes, she drew from him the courage she didn’t have herself.

“I can’t
not
do anything,” she said. And as the words escaped her mouth, she understood that responsibility was something one took even when one didn’t want to.

“So, I convinced you?” he said.

Ingrid laughed softly. “Yes. But I’ve no idea how we’ll get there.”

CHAPTER

42

N
INE RAILWAY CARS TETHERED TO
one another sat on a weed-strewn siding bordering a meadow on the eastern outskirts of Frankfurt. The cars were very old, all sleepers whose chalky green paint and immaculate yellow script had been eaten away by rust and neglect. A few letters were still visible: A flowery
D
; a faded
B
; the word
bahn.

At first glance, the cars looked abandoned, their place on the rails sacrificed years ago to troop transports, flatbeds, and the unsparing commitment to “total war.” But a closer look testified to their resilience. Wooden stairs and handrails descended from each doorway. An American flag drooped from a makeshift flagpole and a brace of military policemen bustled from one car to the next, climbing the stairs and pulling open the doors.

The railroad cars constituted one of seven “separation centers” in Frankfurt where members of the German armed forces could turn themselves in to be processed out of the military and returned to civilian life. Each man was promised ten marks, a half loaf of bread, some lard, cigarettes, and a one-way ticket home. Seventy-odd days after the end of hostilities, the flow of soldiers had slowed to a trickle.

Judge held Ingrid’s hand as they walked across the clearing. If anyone asked, they were husband and wife. A day and a night together and already they wore the easy familiarity of a longtime couple. In dribs and drabs, men approached from all corners of the field, gathering in front of the first car in line. Ingrid tugged his hand and pulled him close. “Stop, Major,” she said. “Look at these men, how they’re walking, how they are carrying themselves. You have to walk like that, too. Slow down a little. Drop your head. Pretend you don’t want to be here.”

“I don’t,” he said. “Believe me.”

Ingrid crossed him with a stern look. “You are humiliated.”

Humiliated.
The word sent a jolt of revulsion right down his spine. Judge stopped in midstride, newly aware of his prideful gait. He watched the Germans filing across the field. He wouldn’t have said they looked beaten, just tired, their step hesitant rather than directed. Posture all but forgotten.
Humiliated.
And he realized he was seeing the physical manifestation of their survivor’s penance.

Judge let go of Ingrid’s hand and moved off toward the railway cars. Tucking in his chin, he viewed the world from the beneath the protection of a wary brow. He let his back slump and his chest sag, not overdoing it. He kept his stride even but unhurried. After a minute, they reached the sparse assembly gathered near the lead car.

He was dressed like the men around him, which was to say as a civilian, and poorly. He wore black trousers and a gray plaid workshirt. The garments were threadbare and filthy, and he was beginning to suspect the pants were ridden with lice. He’d bought the outfit from a man living at the
guterbahnhof
for a dollar and a pack of Lucky’s. Another dollar had convinced the man to throw in his shoes. As for socks and underwear, Judge would keep his own. To hell with the risk!

A shrill whistle pierced the air. “I want one line starting here,” shouted a private from his perch at the head of the stairs. “Single file, if you please, ladies. We are now open for business.”

The shabby gathering fell into place reluctantly, like children heading back to school after summer break. A few of the hardier types hustled back and forth among them, barking out commands to straighten the line as if addressing a platoon standing for inspection. Military tradition died hard.

Judge drew Ingrid aside. “I don’t know how long this will take. Find some shade and get some sleep.”

“Still remember what unit you served in?”

He touched a finger to his forehead. “Don’t worry, it’s all up here.”

Ingrid gave his arm a confident pat. “Then, Feldwebel Dietrich, I suggest you get moving.”

Judge joined the line and in a matter of minutes was swallowed up in its ranks. No one looked at him oddly. No one questioned his presence. Why should they? Hair unkempt and greasy, beard working past a stubble, he was just another German who wanted to get home.

He was the enemy.

“Name!”

“Karl Dietrich.”

“Pay book?”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t got it. It’s lost.”

The sergeant looked up at Judge from behind a broad walnut desk, his lantern jaw and low brow twisted into a frustrated knot. Shaking his head, he plucked a form from an overstuffed tray, wrote the name Karl Dietrich upon it, then stamped it twice. “Another one ain’t got his papers. Jesus H. Christ. Betcha he doesn’t know who Hitler was either.
Der Führer,
huh? Ring a bell?”

Judge was standing inside the cabin of the first railroad car. The original furnishings had been ripped out—compartments, banquettes, the works—and replaced with a line of identical desks, cabinets, and unsmiling clerks. The place had all the charm of an induction center on Staten Island.

“Hemd auf,”
ordered the sergeant. Shirt off.

Judge unbuttoned the plaid shirt and placed it on the table, only to have it flung back in his face a second later. “Get that piece of garbage off my desk!” the sergeant screamed. “Friggin’ kraut. Just ’cause he’s got fleas, wants to give ’em to everybody else. All right, Fritz, raise that left arm up high, let Uncle Sam see if you’ve been a naughty boy.”

Raising his arm, Judge followed the sergeant’s gaze to the flank of his bicep. He was being checked for the blood-group tattoo given to members of the SS. All down the cabin, Germans stood in similar poses, an unintentional parody of the Hitler
gruss.

He was the enemy.

“You’re clear.” The sergeant stamped the form again, then handed it to Judge. “Take this to the next car. Give it to the doc.
Schnell! Schnell!”

Judge picked up his shirt and made his way to the second railway car. A sign above the transom read Medical Examinations. Please Remove Your Clothing. Some wiseacre had drawn a line through the word
Examination
and written
Experiments
below it. Judge scooted down the passageway, taking his place at the end of a line ten deep. He removed his trousers, shirt, and undergarments, rolled them into a tight bundle, and tucked them under his arm. A quarter of an hour passed and the line didn’t budge. More and more men filled the passageway. The space grew cramped, the smell rank and overwhelming. Momentarily, there was a commotion at the rear of the car. A voice yelled from behind him, “Move it! Coming through! Doc’s here.” A paunchy corporal snapping a leather riding quirt to his thigh passed by. He walked slowly, prodding the naked men in their genitals with the tip of the quirt, gifting each with a rude remark. “I seen bigger balls on a Chihuahua. That bratwurst or a knockwurst? Can’t tell the difference myself. Would you look at that cannon cleaner? Heil Hitler indeed!” Spotting the disgust darkening Judge’s face, he flicked the quirt at his rear, raising a florid welt. “Probably like that, don’t you?”

Judge felt his every muscle tense as a prelude to snatching the quirt and shoving it down the obnoxious corporal’s throat. Yet even as his neck flushed and he rolled forward on the balls of his feet, another emotion queered his rage—tempering it as a dash of bitters softens gin—and he realized he wasn’t angry at all, but ashamed.

A firm hand squeezed his shoulder. “Calm down,” whispered the soldier behind him. “Your
persilschein
will do you a lot more good than beating up that prick.”

Judge turned, saying only
“Ja. Danke.”

He was the enemy.

Just then, the doctor arrived. He was a German, like Hansen from Camp 8. A local recruited to do the Americans’ work. Soon after, the line began to move.

The examination took less than two minutes. A peek at his throat and ears. A stethoscope to his chest. “Breathe deeply. Again.” And a few questions. “History of tuberculosis? Gonorrhea? Syphilis?”

Judge answered no to all of the above.

“Fine, then,” the doctor said, giving him a wink to go along with the red stamp on his papers. “Off to the front with you.”

“S
IT DOWN,
D
IETRICH.
M
Y NAME
is Schumacher. You look surprised to see a countryman in an American uniform. Don’t be, there are a lot of us.”

Judge was in car number three. An interview, he’d been told. Nothing more. Schumacher carried the easy authority of an officer born to the caste. Forty with black eyes, black hair, and a face that looked as if it had been stamped from pig iron. A colonel in the Signal Corps, if you believed his rank and insignia. Judge knew better. Counterintelligence was more like it. A Nazi hunter.

“You state here that you served in the Wehrmacht for six years, first with the Third Panzer Corps, General von Seydlitz commanding, then the Sixth Army under von Paulus.”

“Seventy-sixth Infantry Division.” Judge shifted in his seat, a witness giving false testimony. His war record mirrored that of Ingrid’s oldest brother, Heinz, killed at Kharkov in ’43. She’d told him all she knew, then grilled him on the facts for an hour. If any questions arose about what he’d done after Kharkov, he was prepared to say he had deserted.

“I take it then you spent some time in Stalingrad.”

Judge said yes, and explained that he’d been wounded and airlifted to the rear before the encirclement. It was a safe enough lie. Few men had made it out of Stalingrad alive.

Schumacher looked impressed. “Lucky sod.”

Judge nodded, then asked, “May I be so bold, Colonel, to inquire where you served?” He wanted Schumacher to do the talking.

“With Rommel in Africa. I was picked up at El Alamein. It was a short war, I’m afraid. I’ve been in the States for the last three years. Kansas. A marvelous place. Wide open spaces.”

“Ah, America,” Judge replied. “The Yankees. Mickey Mouse. Perhaps one day I shall go.”

“Perhaps.” Schumacher picked up Judge’s personnel sheet and studied it. “We’ve checked your name, Dietrich, against our books for those wanted for automatic arrest or intelligence interest. A lot of Karl Dietrichs on the list, but none listed with the Sixth Army. We’re looking for SS primarily. Frankly, you look the type. Sly. Too smart for your own good. Sure you weren’t one of Himmler’s bootlickers?”

“No, sir.”

“Sind Sie Kamerade?”

“No, sir.”

Schumacher sighed and gave a begrudging smile. “I’ve been told to accept you at your word. Prisons too full as it is, you understand.” He picked up a rubber stamp and held it poised above the sheet. A B stamp meant automatic discharge and a
persilschein
. Anything else meant transfer to a detention facility until more evidence could be dug up, either for or against. It was the risk Judge had to take to procure a ticket to Berlin. Suddenly, Schumacher dropped the stamp on the desk. “One question, Dietrich: your accent. I can’t quite place it.”

Judge had his answer ready. “Berlin, sir.”

“Ah, Berlin.” Schumacher said it with satisfaction, as if his dilemma were solved. But then he inquired further, “Where exactly?”

“Weissensee.” The district where Judge’s mother had grown up.

“Wannsee?”

Maybe Schumacher had lost part of his hearing. Or maybe he knew better. Judge sat up straighter, speaking louder to drive the anxiety from his voice. “No, sir. Weissensee. In the northern part of town.”

Schumacher leaned across the desk, his black eyes boring down on Judge. “You mean eastern, Dietrich.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“These days Weissensee is in the
eastern
sector of Berlin. Naturally, you’re aware that residents returning to the Soviet zone are subject to internment and interview before being granted a return visa? I hear it’s a long wait. Two months or so.”

“Wannsee,” Judge blurted. “Near the lake. It’s very beautiful.”

“Ah, Wannsee. I thought that’s what you said.”

Schumacher picked up the stamp and with a mighty fist, pummeled the sheet. Judge dared a glance. A red B graced the bottom of the page.

H
E HAD FILLED OUT HIS
P-4 form, listing his name, his relatives, and his home address—all wonderfully fictitious. He had sat through a lecture on the proper manner for Germans to address American soldiers—it could be summarized in one word, “don’t”—and a film narrated by Jimmy Stewart extolling the virtues of democracy. He’d sworn that he had never been a member of the Nazi party. He’d been handed a freshly typed document proclaiming him free of all ties to the German Army and the National Socialist Workers’ party and eligible for any and all types of employment. His very own
persilschein
. He could use the same document to apply for a passport, a birth certificate, even a driver’s license. He’d been given ten marks, a new pair of shoes (Florsheims!), and a paper bag crammed with tinned meats, bread, chocolate, and cigarettes. Most important, though, he’d received a ticket authorizing him to travel to Berlin on the next available transport.

Three hours after stepping inside the first railway car of Voluntary Separation Center 3, Frankfurt, Karl Dietrich was free to go.

Judge found Ingrid lying in the grass drinking a pint of orange juice given her by a smitten GI. He helped her to her feet and explained that a bus was leaving for Berlin in an hour from a transit center a kilometer away. The two jogged the entire distance, presenting themselves to a buck private manning the gate.

“I have a ticket for Berlin,” Judge said, coating his English with a viscous German accent.

“Bus is full. We’ll put you down for day after tomorrow. Name?”

Judge looked to his right and left. Seeing no troops nearby, he reached into his pocket and took out a twenty-dollar bill. “I need two seats on the bus.
Today.
”

The private clipped the bill from his hand, took his ticket, and returned his eyes to his clipboard. “Well? What’re you waiting for? Bus leaves in thirty minutes.”