The Violent Century (20 page)

82.
LIMEHOUSE, LONDON
1954

A restless spirit animates him. He walks with long strides. Along the river, the docks, the ships coming and going. The sight and smell and sound of empire. The call of sailors, porters, the lights. The lights attract him like a moth.

The pub is called Charlie Brown’s, from outside you couldn’t even say if it were open or not. A dockyard pub, a seamen’s pub. Oblivion hesitates outside. There are fancier places, now. The Royal Vauxhall Tavern. The Spartan Club. But they are in the light. This place is all in shadow.

He goes inside.

Dim lights and cigarette smoke, the smell of wine and beer. Men only, in this pub. A gramophone playing, Doris Day singing, ‘Secret Love’. Oblivion finds a chair at the bar and orders a pint. Drinks as if to wash away the night, the dusty streets. Half turns in his seat. A couple of dockers standing by the men’s loos – one makes eye contact, Oblivion turns away. Drinks his beer. Turns again. One of the dockers has disappeared, the other stands there still, their eyes meet, an understanding. Oblivion drowns the last of his drink as though steeling his courage. Stands up.

83.
LIMEHOUSE, LONDON
1954

Their lovemaking is a chiaroscuro of light and dark, hurried, furtive, the other man pressed against the wall, their naked skins, Oblivion licks the sheen of sweat off the other man’s upper lip. When it is over they exchange no words, they go their separate ways, Oblivion adjusts his belt and his cufflinks, when he steps out onto the docks the sky is overcast. And a wild hunger takes flight in him, a form of nostalgia, for what has been, and gone, and is no more.

COMICS CODE ESTABLISHED

September 23, 1954

NEW YORK Following the public hearings before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in April and June this year, on the subject of graphic crime and horror ‘comic books’, the Comics Magazine Association of America (CMAA) has been established to self-regulate its members’ publications. The new Code states, in part, that good ‘must triumph over evil’; that the criminals must always be punished; and that ‘scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, and masochism’ will not be tolerated.

In addition, ‘profanity, obscenity, smut and vulgarity’, as well as illicit sex relations, must be neither portrayed nor hinted at. All romance or love stories must ‘emphasize the value of the home and the sanctity of marriage.’ Quite rightly, too, the new Code states that ‘passion or romantic interest shall never be treated in such a way as to stimulate the lower and baser emotions.’

Finally, stories which take as their focus the issue of evil must only be published ‘where the intent is to illustrate a moral issue’. Evil must never be presented in a glamorous fashion or in any way ‘as to injure the sensibilities of the reader.’

It is this newspaper’s sincere wish that all other publications, be them the lowly form of the ‘comic book’ or the more lofty form of the novel, follow similar guidelines in future.

TEN:

THE TRIAL

JERUSALEM
1964

ADOLF EICHMANN EXECUTED

June 1, 1962

JERUSALEM Convicted Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, widely considered one of the main architects of the Jewish genocide initiated by the Nazi regime, was hanged last night in Ramla, Israel, in the prison in which he was incarcerated. Eichmann, who carried the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer, had been one of the prime movers of the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question.’ He had attended the Wannsee Conference, in which the Nazi policy of genocide was set down, and was appointed in charge of the transportation of the Jews to the death camps. He was convicted of crimes against humanity in the Jerusalem District Court on December 11, 1961. The three judges handed down a unanimous verdict.

Eichmann’s body was cremated. His ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean Sea, beyond Israel’s territorial waters, ‘to ensure that there could be no future memorial and that no country would serve as his final resting place.’

Eichmann had lived for some years in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It has been suggested he is but one of many high-ranking Nazis to have escaped to South America under new identities, and that many more remain in hiding.

84.
JERUSALEM
1964

The Old Man arrives in Tel Aviv on a British Airways flight, and a man from the Consulate picks him up.

– Hot, isn’t it, the man from the Consulate says.

– Is it always like this? the Old Man says.

– Most of the year, the man from the Consulate says, apologetically.

They drive up to Jerusalem, through a landscape that changes rapidly, from the coastal plains to low-lying hills to sudden mountains, a sharp incline. The Old Man checks into the King David Hotel, on the edge of Jerusalem’s Old City, on the very armistice line dividing the city between Israel and Jordan. The King David is packed full, international visitors arriving for the trial, and the hotel bar is thick with cigarette and cigar smoke, hard-drinking newsmen and, of course, the Übermenschen.

– This is the largest gathering of Übermenschen ever assembled, an excited anchorwoman for CBS says to the camera. All but unheard of, for that day and age: a woman reporting the news.

She is standing just outside the hotel, the camera pans over guests arriving or leaving. A man steps out, an impressive physique, muscles like a body builder’s, all packed into tight multicoloured Lycra. He has a bare chest, wild blond hair, flashing eyes, a flashing grin—

– Tigerman! Over here! Tigerman!

The man turns, that lazy grin following the lens of the camera. Something animalistic, magnetic about him. It seems to draw us, the viewers, we notice the anchorwoman is a little flushed. We might, if truth be told, be feeling a little flushed ourselves.

– Hello, Theresa, Tigerman says.

– Tigerman, are you here for the trial? Are you representing the State Department? Would you like to comment on—

– Thank you, Theresa, Tigerman says. He sweeps back his blond mane. His nails, we notice, are long and sharp. I am here, Tigerman announces to the camera, as a private citizen. I am here out of one simple desire: I want to see justice done.

– Tigerman, is it true the United States government has lodged a formal complaint with the Israeli authorities over the arrest and kidnapping of de la Cruz?

– I couldn’t possibly comment, Theresa, Tigerman says, and the smile he flashes her is feral, it is of a wild animal showing its teeth, and the anchorwoman shies back from him. But I am sure we all, Tigerman says, simply want to see historic justice done here over the coming days.

– Thank you, Tigerman—

But the Übermensch is already turning away from her and, as the camera zooms in on his back, we see him joined by a woman in a blue, tight-fitting costume, with dark hair, a slender figure, and we hear Theresa of CBS drawing in her breath as she says, And that was the renowned Tigerman, a national hero, and there with him, it can be none other than the famous Whirlwind. They, and many more, are here in Jerusalem, Israel, for what some are already calling the Trial of the Century. This is Theresa Conway, in Jerusalem, reporting for CBS.

The Old Man smiles without humour and watches Tigerman disappear into the narrow streets. The Old Man goes and sits in the bar and orders a scotch and swirls it in the glass. He is not looking forward to the trial.

Now he sits at court wishing he still had that Scotch to keep him company. Waiting. Watching. They have no juries in Israel, and the three judges sit alone, on a plain dais, overlooking the prosecution and the defence benches, and the rows of journalists and spectators. In the middle of the courtroom sits a transparent box made of bulletproof glass, with a chair and a microphone inside it, and that is where the man sits. Woven into the glass are fine filaments of electric wire, and a faint eldritch glow suffuses the box, as though a force field of some form is engulfing it, sealing the man inside and whatever power he may possess. They are taking no chances, the Israelis. Not after Buenos Aires …

He is not a formidable man, this de la Cruz. He is a grey man in a grey suit, with grey short-cropped hair and old-fashioned spectacles and an impeccably knotted grey silk tie. He, too, looks hot in his glass aquarium box.

The Old Man sits down at the very back, so he may watch without being observed. Each chair has a pair of large earphones plugged into a socket by its side. The proceedings are conducted in Hebrew while witness interviews may be done in the witness’s native tongue or in English. For the benefit of the journalists and audience, a simultaneous translation is broadcast in real time, directly into their earphones. The Old Man doesn’t put them on yet. Instead he watches the journalists and the photographers and the television men. They are here from all corners of the Earth. Americans mix with Chinese, Russians with West Germans, everyone wants to cover this trial, everyone wants the scoop on the man in the glass box.

The courtroom is filled with Israeli officials in cheap, worn suits; of newspapermen with open collars and ink-stained fingers; and it is full of the costumed heroes, who sit still and silent, for the most part, lending the only colour to this otherwise rather drab courtroom. The man in the glass box, this anonymous de la Cruz, sits quietly, hands folded in his lap. The only thing in motion are his eyes; they scan the courtroom rapidly, back and forth, and the Old Man knows he is missing little. The eyes are alive with a fierce intelligence. The judges gather their papers. A hush slowly settles on the court.

The court clerk stands up. Clears his throat.

And the trial,
The State of Israel vs. Joachim Vomacht
, at last begins.

85.
JERUSALEM
1964

There’s a murmur of interruption, a moment during Anton Gerasimov’s testimony. The Israeli soldiers scattered along the walls, even they stand to attention, and the judges perk up, and the foreign correspondents turn this way and that as if unsure exactly as to the nature of the interruption. The doors to the courtroom open and in comes a large, barrel-chested, as they say, man. He wears dusty khakis and what the Israelis call a Tembel hat, a cotton, bell-shaped hat that shades his dark face from the sun. The man’s skin is indeed dark – no, not dark, not so much dark as a peculiar shade of deep green. He pauses and looks around the courtroom and the murmurs rise, and someone gasps, The Sabra!

The Sabra’s eyes pan across the room until they find the man in the glass box, and there they linger. The Old Man watches from the back of the room. A tension in the courtroom, like an electric current (but not from the Electric Twins, only one of whom is present). The Sabra moves his head, his neck is thick, he raises one arm and thorns burst out of it, and in a ring around his neck, and out of his back. Then they deflate and disappear and the Sabra walks to the back of the room, quietly, where a nervous young man vacates his seat for the great man, this hero of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the War of Independence and of Operation Kadesh and, of course, of the Vomacht kidnapping itself. The Old Man looks at the Sabra and, for just a moment, the Sabra looks back. Recognition floods his eyes. He nods, wordlessly. The Old Man nods back.

On the witness stand, Anton Gerasimov resumes his testimony. He is wearing white, a plain one-piece white suit. He has no hair. His face is deeply scarred. His eyes are blue and cold.

– You were a partisan? the counsellor for the prosecution, a tall, thin man in his sixties, wearing a yarmulke and a conservative suit, says.

– Yes.

Gerasimov has a deep, hoarse voice.

– Against the Germans.

– Yes.

– Where was this?

– I operated in Belarus. I was at the fall of Minsk. Later, I led a group of comrades against the Nazi animal and the Einsatzgruppen.

– Einsatzgruppen? the counsellor says.

– Death squads, Gerasimov says.

The counsellor nods, half turning to the audience, to make sure they got the point.

– You are changed, Mr Gerasimov?

– Kerach, Gerasimov says.

– That is your moniker, correct?

– That is what you will call me, the man on the witness stand says.

The counsellor colours, a little. Of course, he says. Kerach. A half-laugh from the audience, primarily, the Old Man notes, from the costumed Übermenschen.

– You are changed, Kerach? You are an
Übermensch
?

– Yes.

– Could you … could you show us?

– Here? Now?

– If the court has no objection? the counsellor says, turning to the judges.

– We’ll allow it, the lead judge, a white-haired man with reading glasses on a string around his neck, says. On the witness stand, Kerach shrugs. Very well, then, he says.

He raises his hand, his palm upwards, open, as if to capture unseen snow. The temperature changes in the courtroom, it drops. The Old Man’s breath fogs in front of his face. Ice crawls along the windowsills and the sunlight breaks through the glass into rainbows. An icy sheen covers the parquet floors. Kerach moves his hand, gently, the cupped fingers turning, outstretching towards the man in the box. A crack like gunfire echoes in the still courtroom and the bulletproof glass breaks. Shouts break out and soldiers rush towards the box. Stop! Someone shouts. Stop! Kerach’s fingers move as though composing a silent symphony. Ice crawls over the glass witness box and the man inside it is trapped without sound, sealed within. IDF soldiers jump on Kerach and wrestle him to the ground. He does not fight them. They pin his hands behind his back and cuff them and still he does not resist. Do something!