The Tenth Witness (Henri Poincare Mystery) (15 page)

Did she really not know? Could Anselm have separated her that sharply from the business arm of Kraus Steel?

That night, after a bath and with a Scotch in hand, more composed, Liesel reported more or less the Ugandan version of what I’d found in Hong Kong, and what Laurent had found in Kraus facilities worldwide. Anselm’s workers lived in shanties with roofs of thatch or, if they could afford extra payments to the company store, corrugated tin. “We don’t give them the hardhats or headlamps,” she said, pouring another drink. “They pay the store for that. I give my staff office equipment. I don’t make them
pay
. Christ.”

She sipped her Scotch.

“The collapsed mine is a tomb. We shut it down, but Anselm has his geologists drawing up plans for a new shaft several kilometers to the east where he can work the same deposits. This time he had better do it right. What a fiasco.”

The hour was late and the lights low, though still bright enough to make a mirror of the window overlooking the Englischer Garden. We sat on the couch in her living room, watching each other’s reflection in the glass.

I wondered aloud if Anselm was in the habit of visiting his facilities.

“He visited the mine when it opened, yes. But they hadn’t dug the shafts deep enough to create any hazards. The store and the huts were all new and fresh-looking then. That was twelve years ago, and he never went back. Now he says he’s as shocked as anyone and that he didn’t know. How is this possible? He
runs
the business. I can tell you one thing. Our facilities in Europe are all safe and well run. Anselm assigns the management of our offshore holdings to his vice presidents. That’s why he didn’t know.”

“And they report to—?”

“Uncle Viktor.”

That night Liesel nearly consumed me in bed. Our first efforts were a sweet, if hurried, welcome home. When I turned on my side to rest, she turned me back and, nearly pleading, asked me to hold her. I did, but that wasn’t enough. I woke while it was still dark to find her straddling me. She turned on a night-light. We thrashed. I urged her to get some sleep, but she woke me again at first light and called my name: “Hold me,” she said.

Later, when I rose and crossed the apartment to sit by the balcony, I felt her watching until, finally, I returned and sat beside her, smoothing her hair. I kissed her forehead and she closed her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

She looked at me and wept.

W
HEN
WE
parked at Anselm’s estate, I stepped from the car to hear Friedrich from his perch in the Stuka in furious aerial combat.
Eeeerrrrrr rat-at-tat. Eeeerrrrr.
He was too consumed to wave, and I could imagine one day having children, hoping they’d have a passion, any passion, as pure and beautiful as his.

The day was hot and sunny. Anselm worked a barbecue grill, and Theresa, arms held wide, came to greet us. She was a sturdy woman in the way opera singers can be sturdy. Heavy, not fat. Strong and big bosomed. Also tender. Magda, sucking her thumb, had attached herself to her mother’s skirts. Theresa kissed Liesel on both cheeks and did the same for me, with equal warmth. I hesitated to think so, but her greeting felt as cheerful and easy as if I were already a member of the family.

“Opa!”

I wasted no time when I saw Schmidt.

I walked directly to him, shook his hand, and whispered, “This is idiotic. Stop the surveillance.” I didn’t do him the discourtesy of making a scene, and I wouldn’t be telling Liesel that her godfather didn’t trust me enough to leave me on my own. My disagreement with Viktor would remain between us, if he listened to reason.

He returned my whisper. “Just a reminder to take care, Henri.”

“It’s heavy-handed and insulting.”

“True. But I wanted to be sure you
heard
me yesterday. You don’t think it’s just as insulting that you’d check on this family in a war crimes archive? Exactly what and who do you think we are?”

He said this over his shoulder, having turned toward the house as Franz Hofmann shuffled by with his cane. It was not the stroke and the resulting deficits that made Hofmann so unpleasant. I didn’t mind that he’d taken an immediate dislike to me. But after fifteen minutes in his company, I’d concluded he was a bitter man who looked at the world through a lens that colored everything and everyone deficient. He saw me but didn’t acknowledge me.
Tap tap shuffle. Tap tap shuffle.
One could wake screaming in the night at the sound.

I offered my hand in greeting, ready for his grip.

“I remember you,” he said. “I didn’t like you.”

“I bet you still don’t.”

His lower lip flapped. The stroke had affected his voice, which sounded as rough as if he’d spent the previous week shrieking. He stepped closer: “You’re French, aren’t you? That’s the problem.”

“
Mais oui.
”

“Go to hell.”

He shuffled on, and his aide joined him for a walk in the rose garden.

Flanked by his Boerboels, Schmidt reappeared with a tray of drinks. “Schnapps for the adults,” he called. “Lemonade for the children.” The dogs raced from his side to Liesel, prancing about her. They sniffed around my shoes and pants, smelling my uneasiness. My calf seized up, but I resisted reaching for the T in my pocket. With Schmidt present, I figured I was safe. Even I believed he controlled these animals. On cue, they broke away from me when their master called, “Hupt!”

“I shot down four planes, Opa! Two American Thunderbolts and two British Spitfires. Shot them right out of the sky. Four on one, and I got them all!”

“That’s my boy!”

“Papa!” Theresa scolded her father. “The Americans and British are our friends now. Have him shoot somebody else down.”

“Leave it be. Friedrich, run this drink over to Uncle Franz. Don’t spill any. And for God’s sake, don’t
drink
any.”

“Really, Papa. He should be shooting down space aliens or Russian MiGs.”

“Ach! It’s a game.”

Anselm called to Friedrich: “Watch out—two Spitfires on your tail, five o’clock. Dive hard!” Anselm waved to us, and Liesel and I joined him after relieving Schmidt of three glasses of schnapps.

“We’ve got to talk,” Liesel told her brother.

“I know,” he said. There were circles under his eyes. He was taking the news from Uganda seriously. That gave me hope.

He kissed her cheek. “I heard you met President Amin. You sent my regards—and condolences? And you, my friend,” he said, turning to me. “Viktor tells me you’ve set up the lab. Have you begun work? Any insights yet?”

Anselm saw me watching as Liesel walked off. “You know, I still look at my wife that way. It will be twenty years next month. . . . Tell me about the lab, Henri.”

I was in the man’s house drinking his liquor, knowing more than I cared to know about his business and unable to say a word. Besides Uganda, he had a disaster-in-waiting in Hong Kong. He had Interpol perched on his shoulder and didn’t know it, along with the sure prospect of a chemical wasteland if he decided to salvage circuit boards the way he salvaged ships. In spite of it all, I wanted to like Anselm Kraus, not the least reason being his affection for Friedrich and Magda. Somehow the man disarmed my criticisms. If at that moment he swore he didn’t know about the conditions at the mine, I would have believed him.

I didn’t ask.

I dug into my pocket and produced three small vials. Gold in one, silver in the next, copper in the third. “Proof of concept,” I said.

Anselm grinned. “Viktor, come look!”

“Don’t rush to conclusions,” I told him. “Wait until I finish my report.”

He clapped my shoulder. “Well done, Henri! I was going to give you this in any event today, but now I’d say you’ve earned it.” He produced a check. “Funds to get you started.”

I looked at it and looked at him. “Anselm, this is ridiculous.”

“I’ll be the judge of what I pay a valued consultant.” The grill flared, and he excused himself, laughing. “Really, extracting gold from junk. I love it!”

Schmidt walked over to inspect, the dogs at his side. “I’ll grant you this,” he said, flicking the vial of gold in the sunlight. “You’re competent. Competence matters, but it’s not enough. You must set up systems, then perfect them. Everything depends on well-run systems. Clear methods. That’s the thing.”

Theresa called us to lunch, and we found our way to bed sheets spread across the well-tended lawn. The children led Uncle Franz from the rose garden, and he sat beside me.

S
ERVANTS
CLEANED
up after us. I played soccer with the children and engaged in a bit of aerial combat with Friedrich. He and I ran across the lawn, into the woods and back, with the same result as on Terschelling. The child was happy, and Liesel embraced me openly as I returned to the terrace.

“You’re a good sport, Henri.”

“No,” I answered. “I’m not. I wanted to beat him but couldn’t. He’s faster and more agile, and that makes me angrier than hell!” We were laughing as Friedrich walked by, sweating and gulping lemonade. “You’re the best combat ace I know,” I said, tousling his hair.

The dogs perked up.

Magda, sitting beside her grandfather on a chaise lounge, pointed to the thick picture book propped on his knee:
Kinder-und Hausmärchen
der Brüder Grimm. Grimms’
Fairy Tales
. Schmidt reached an arm around the child, who leaned against him. “Opa,” she said, “let’s read the silly one about the man in the thorns.”

“
Again?
”

“Please, Opa!”

I helped myself to a lemonade as we all settled in for a story on a pleasant afternoon. Schmidt was clearly pleased to be taking directions from his granddaughter. He consulted the table of contents. “Let’s see now. ‘The Jew Among Thorns.’ That’s the one.”

I looked at Schmidt, then to the others. Only Liesel’s eyes flashed as Magda clapped her hands. “Read the part where the old man with the billy-goat beard gets caught in the thorn bush. The good servant makes him dance by playing his magic fiddle and he gets all scraped.
That one,
Opa!”

Anselm and Theresa were watching and smiling. I wondered what could possibly be happening as Schmidt read and came to the part Magda had requested. “‘When the Jew was fast among the thorns, the good servant’s humor so tempted him that he took up his fiddle and began to play.’ ”

“His
magic
fiddle,” cried Magda. “The one that makes everyone dance!”

“Yes,” said Schmidt, continuing: “‘In a moment the Jew’s legs began to move, and to jump into the air, and the more the servant fiddled the better went the dance. But the thorns tore his shabby coat for him, combed his beard, and pricked and plucked him all over the body.
Oh dear,
cried the Jew,
what do I want with your fiddling? Leave the fiddle alone, master; I do not want to dance’.
”

Liesel set her drink down. “Uncle Viktor, please. It’s enough.”

Schmidt stopped his reading. “What? What’s wrong?”

“The story offends me. Please. The old
Jew?
Enough already. It’s a thick book. Find another story. As I remember it, the Jew gets hanged in the end mostly for being a Jew. Just stop.”

Schmidt looked to his daughter then to Anselm for help. “Liesel, these are children’s stories. It’s the brothers Grimm, for goodness sake. This book—” he lifted it—“is a national treasure. It’s part of our heritage.”

Liesel turned to her brother. “She’s your daughter. Tell him to stop. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Magda, come. The rose bushes you and I planted last autumn are flowering.” Theresa stood, extending a hand. “Papa, put the book away for now. You can read later.”

Schmidt looked at his goddaughter. “Well, that wasn’t very pleasant.”

“Uncle Viktor, it’s stories like these that—not around me. Just stop it.”

Anselm shrugged. “I don’t see the problem. It’s a fairy tale. And Viktor’s right. It
is
our history.”

“Anselm, we live in
Munich,
for God’s sake! Do I need to spell it out? Magda’s five years old. Wait until she’s fifteen, when she can think for herself. Really, how could you, Viktor?”

Uncle Franz, with greasy hands and chicken bits on his chin, was gnawing at a drumstick.

“Liesel, our father read these same stories to us. That’s my copy of Grimm.”

“I
hated
that story. You’re poisoning her.”

They must have accepted me as Liesel’s boyfriend after all, arguing in the open as they were. Not that anyone asked my opinion. I walked behind Liesel and whispered a soft
Bravo
in her ear.

Schmidt announced that he was suddenly tired and went into the house. Anselm looked at his watch. Liesel had ruined a perfectly good picnic, and I couldn’t wait to congratulate her in a more private setting. I was waiting for her signal that we should leave when Friedrich bolted off the terrace and cried: “One more dogfight. You’re the Spitfire. I’m the Stuka.”

This time I was ready for him. Before he even finished his challenge, I cleared the porch and caught up. I grabbed his shoulder and he tumbled and spun, laughing, this time making sounds of a plane with a sputtering engine. This child knew how to lose with grace, which endeared him to me all the more. I was enjoying this last installment of our game a great deal when I hoisted him into the air and caught him.