Greeks Bearing Gifts

FORTY-NINE

Back in the bedroom Merten was shaking his head.

“Walk into a Greek court of my own free will?” he said. “I don’t know. Lawyers hate going into court, you should know that. Suppose they find some pretext to arrest me? Never can tell with the Greeks. Look at the way they screwed Socrates.”

“Why would they? You’re not wanted by the Greek police for anything that happened in 1943. I already checked. You’re in the clear. It’s those bastards Brunner and Eichmann they want, not you. And what better proof of your innocence than making yourself a volunteer witness in Meissner’s defense?”

“Yes, I do see that.” Merten extinguished his cigarette in an ashtray and lit another. “By the way, whatever rubbish Spiros Reppas might have told you, Bernie, I had nothing to do with what happened to those Jews. Just for the record, it was all Brunner’s idea. To trick them into giving up their wealth. By the time I heard about that gold, it was already too late for those people. They were on the trains to Auschwitz and Treblinka.” He sighed. “Brunner—I never met a man who was so set on getting Jews deported.”

“Like I said, it was a long time ago. And none of my business.”

“I just wanted you to know, since you’re trying to help me. For which I am very grateful.” He took a puff of his cigarette and shrugged. “Why are you helping me? I’m still not a hundred percent clear about that either.”

“You helped me, didn’t you? Got me the job with MRE. Now that I’m down here it would seem ungrateful not to help you, Max.”

“Well, when you put it like that. I always did like you, Bernie.” Merten nodded; he put on an undershirt, glanced around the room, and frowned. “Now where did I leave that clean shirt?”

“It’s outside. On the washing line.” I looked at my watch as if Brunner really was on our tail. I’d almost managed to convince myself that he really had captured Spiros Reppas and was squeezing him for information back at the house beside the Acropolis. My plan was to drive Merten back to Athens and, once there, to persuade Lieutenant Leventis that while Max Merten wasn’t Alois Brunner he was the next best thing; betraying Merten seemed to be my best option for getting my passport back and, along the way, delivering up a criminal to well-deserved justice. It was the right thing to do and yet—and yet there was something about this deception that left a sour taste in my mouth. “You need to hurry, Max. The sooner we’re off this island, the better. There’s a boat waiting for us on the quayside, to take us to Kosta, where I have a car.”

“Yes, of course.” Merten sat down to put on his stinky socks and then his shoes. “You say we have a three- or four-hour start on Brunner? Since he got hold of Spiros?”

“That’s right.”

“That might be a lot less if Spiros talks right away. Think about it. Why would he stay silent if Brunner puts his feet to the fire, like that poor Aztec, Cuauhtémoc.”

“While poor Spiros might easily say where you’ve been hiding, Max, he can hardly tell him what Brunner probably wants to know most of all, which is the true location of the Epeius, and the gold. Spiros told me that only you knew where it was—that you kept the location a secret even from him and Witzel—but I can’t imagine a man like Brunner will believe that story, not for a minute. Which, like I say, and unfortunately for Spiros, ought to slow Brunner down just long enough for us to put some distance between him and us.”

“Yes, that makes sense. Bad enough to be tortured, but to be tortured for something you don’t actually know. Jesus.” Merten pulled a face. “It doesn’t bear thinking of, does it?”

“Then don’t think about it. That should be easy for you, Max. You don’t strike me as a man much troubled by conscience. But there’s no time for any more delay. I’d hate it if my theory about Spiros proved to be wrong. Being here now I’m in as much danger as you are. And so is the friend I have who’s waiting downstairs. She’s going to drive us straight to Athens. Her name is Elli.”

“Short for Elisabeth, no doubt. I can’t wait to meet her.”

“So finish dressing and come downstairs.”

“You know, I really appreciate you helping me like this. You were always a good man in a tight spot. Especially now that you have my gun, not to mention my tickets home. If you need a ticket home, Bernie, you only have to ask. I’ve more than enough money to buy you a ticket, too. In gratitude for saving my neck. Again.”

“That would be the money you and Schramma stole from General Heinkel in Munich, wouldn’t it? Money you needed to fund this expedition.”

“That money was given to the general by the communists, with the intention of compromising West German politics. Money that was probably stolen from the proletariat they purport to represent. So I’m not much troubled about the origins of that money. Anyway, what do you care?”

“What I care about was the way you let me talk you into keeping it, Max. The way I was supposed to be the stooge meant to take the blame. Did you plan that, too?”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Bernie. Of course not. And I certainly didn’t ask Schramma to kill the general and the other Fritz who was with him. That was his own stupid idea. You know if only we’d met again sooner I could have cut you in on this instead of Christian Schramma. I never did feel comfortable with that man. There’s something about Bavarians I realize I just don’t like, especially now I live there. I sometimes wonder if any of us will ever get back to Berlin.”

“Not while the Russians are drinking our beer.”

“But look, let’s forget all that unpleasantness. Munich and its complacent, middle-class Catholic values are a long way away. You and I, Bernie—we’re both Berliners, you and I, and that makes all the difference, doesn’t it? We’re old comrades, Bolle boys, right? So we should be straight with each other. So why don’t we just forget all this nonsense about Arthur Meissner and this Lieutenant Leventis and let’s talk about the real reason you came here to help me. Let’s talk about that, shall we?”

Merten was wagging his finger at me with a grin on his face that made me want to slap it onto the floor.

“You want a share, don’t you? Of the gold. Of course you do. And why not? Have you any idea how much is down there, in just fifteen fathoms of water? Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth. Spiros and Witzel couldn’t have told you how much, because even they had no conception of even half of what’s there. Not in their wildest dreams. There’s enough gold to keep us in tax-free, mink-lined luxury for the rest of our lives. Think of it. More gold than Cortés and his conquistadors could even dream of. Free of income tax, Bernie, free of any tax. And it’s ours. All we have to do is go and get it. After which we can go and live on an island in the Caribbean. Buy one, perhaps. One each. Or go our separate ways, as you prefer.”

Merten took a drag on his cigarette and then used it to light another. “All right, it’s a deal,” he said, not waiting for my answer; his assumption that I was as greedy as Witzel or Schramma bothered me. But it bothered me more that I even paused to consider what he’d said. “So I’ll cut you in for twenty-five percent. That’s fair, given that all of the expenses have been mine. Also I have partners in Bonn I need to pay off. Politicians I owe favors to. But look here, instead of driving to Athens, we should head north, to Alexandroúpoli, and cross over into Turkey. Then, one day, in the not-so-distant future, when Alois Brunner has given up looking for me, we can come back down here, charter a ship, and make another attempt to retrieve the gold. I can assure you it’s quite safe where it is. Safer than in any Greek bank. After all these years another few months won’t make any difference.”

I shook my head but I can’t say I wasn’t tempted. Becoming very rich has its attractions for someone with nothing in the bank, not even a bank account. “No thanks, Max.”

“What do you mean, no thanks? Are you mad? Don’t you want to be as rich as the Count of Monte Cristo? Richer.”

“Not really. Not while I still have a conscience. That money is covered with the blood of sixty thousand dead Jews. My mind would be on them every time I bought myself another Caribbean island.”

“Think about what you’re saying for a moment, Bernie. Are you seriously suggesting we just leave the gold there for the fishes to enjoy?”

“So maybe you should tell someone about it. Maybe even hand it over to the Greek government so they could return it to the Jews. Besides, all your partners have an unfortunate habit of finding themselves double-crossed, or dead. I’d rather take my chances with the Greek police than go on a sea voyage with you. Frankly I wouldn’t trust you on a rowing boat in the Tiergarten. Lieutenant Leventis has my passport in his desk drawer. That’s all I need now. You can come back here and go diving for gold another time, and with someone else. Me, I just want to go home. Thanks to you I have a nice respectable job, a salary. I even have a company car. That and a good night’s sleep are worth all the sunken treasure there is.”

“For old times’ sake I’ll make it thirty percent.”

“Look, forget about the gold for now and let’s get going.”

“Do you honestly think that those Jews would ever see a penny of that money if we just handed it over to the Greek government, or ours?” Merten uttered a scornful laugh. “No, of course not. The governments and the banks are the biggest robbers on the damn planet. They steal from people every day, only they call it taxation. Or interest on a mortgage. Or a fine imposed by a court. This new EEC they’ve made is just another way of robbing us all with yet more taxation and fines in the name of peace and prosperity. And those Jews, how the hell do you think they got all that gold in the first place? From lending money. By robbing us. By being bankers in their turn.”

“I’m afraid all that sounds very cynical, Max. But I guess I’m not surprised. You’re a lawyer, after all.”

“You’re not an educated man, Bernie. Are you? I mean you got your Abitur, but you never went to university. If you had, then you’d know it’s intellectually respectable to be cynical. It’s the only way you can see the lies for what they are. Unless you’re cynical about things you might as well give up on life. You think I’m cynical? I’m an amateur by comparison with what governments do. These respectable men—our leaders—are the same leaders, the same men who just made a war in which fifty million people died. It’s never the cynical men who start wars but the virtuous, principled ones. Adenauer, Karamanlis, Eisenhower, and Eden, the leaders of the free world, but it’s the same old lie called democracy.”

“There was nothing virtuous about Hitler.”

“Yes, but it was Neville Chamberlain who declared war on Germany, wasn’t it? Kind of makes my point.”

“Nice idea, Max. But still, thanks but no thanks.”

“I’ve misjudged you, Bernie. After everything that’s happened to you is it possible you still believe in good? That you think there’s some morality in this lousy world? Experience should have taught you by now that good simply doesn’t exist, old friend. Not for you, not for anyone, but I have to say especially not for you. People are generally wasting their time if they think they can overcome evil. It’s nonsense. In this world there is nearly always only evil and degrees of evil. Any good that exists results only when an organism such as a human being like you or me acts in his own self-interest out of biological necessity. That’s how things prosper and survive. By looking out for number one. That’s certainly been true for you.”

“I don’t believe that,” I said, now feeling a sense of disquiet at a vague suspicion I had that there was something in what he’d said. Wasn’t I selling him to the Greeks out of my own self-interest? “I can’t ever believe that.”

“Pity. You know, your conscience won’t bring any of those dead Jews back, Bernie. Most of those poor devils from Salonika don’t have any families to whom one could return the money, even if one wanted to. Brunner and Eichmann and others like them made absolutely sure of that. They’re all gone; any of the ones who survived have good reason to lie low themselves, out of shame. The only Jews who survived were the ones who did something crummy to bring that situation about. And it’s not like you or I killed those people. They’re just numbers now. Statistics in a history book. Emaciated faces on an old black-and-white newsreel. Poor Jew stories in Life magazine. What happened happened but it’s over now. No sense crying about it.”

Max Merten smiled a decayed smile, which served to remind me of just how rotten his soul was. Among all Merten’s rotten teeth his single gold incisor resembled a tiny nugget found in the dirt on some grizzled Klondike prospector’s pan and, in his brutally cynical mouth, gold couldn’t have seemed less precious.