Six Graves To Munich

CHAPTER 10

The next morning they loaded the Opel with Rogan’s things. They had decided that from Bublingshausen they would drive on to Frankfurt, where Rogan could catch a plane to Sicily and look for Genco Bari. Rosalie would take the train back to Munich and wait for Rogan there. Rogan had reassured her. “When I finish in Sicily and Budapest I’ll come back here for Osteen. And I’ll come straight to the pension, first thing.” In this he had lied. He planned to see her again only if he killed von Osteen and managed to stay free.

The Opel sped along the German roads. Rosalie sat as far away from Rogan as possible, huddled against her door, head turned away. Near midday Rogan asked, “Do you want to stop for lunch?” She shook her head. As they came nearer and nearer to Bublingshausen, Rosalie hunched farther and farther down in her seat. Rogan swung the Opel off the main autobahn, and then they were entering the city of Wetzlar, whose great optical works had been the original target of the American bombers that had killed her father and mother. The Opel moved slowly through the heavy city traffic, then finally came to the yellow sign, with its arrow pointed toward the suburban road, that read “Bublingshausen.” Rosalie buried her face in her hands so that she would not be able to see.

Rogan drove slowly. When they entered the village he studied it carefully. There were no scars of war. It had been completely rebuilt, only the houses were no longer made of gingerbread wood, but of concrete and steel. Children played in the streets. “We’re here,” he said. “Look up.”

Rosalie kept her head in her hands. She didn’t answer. Rogan made the car go very slowly, easier to control; then he reached over and pulled Rosalie’s blond head out of her hands, forcing her to look at her childhood village.

What happened then surprised him. She turned on him with anger and said, “This is not my village. You’ve made a mistake. I don’t recognize anything here.” But then the street made a turn, heading out toward open country, and there were the fenced-in plots of ground, private gardens, each gate with its owner’s name printed on a varnished yellow board. Wildly Rosalie turned her head to look back at the village, then at the gardens. He could see the recognition dawning in her eyes. She started fumbling with the door handle and Rogan stopped the car. Then Rosalie was out and running across the road onto the grassy earth of the gardens, running awkwardly. She stopped and looked up into the sky, and then finally she turned her head toward Bublingshausen. Rogan could see her body arch with her inward agony, and when she crumpled to the ground he got out of the car and ran to her.

She was sitting awkwardly, legs splayed out, and she was weeping. Rogan had never seen anyone weep with such grief. She was wailing like a small child, wailing that would have been comical if it had not been so powerfully wrung from her guts. She tore at the earth with her painted fingernails, as if she were trying to inflict pain on it. Rogan stood beside her, waiting, but she gave no sign that she knew he was there.

Two young girls, no more than fourteen, came down the road from Bublingshausen. They carried gardening sacks over their arms and they chatted gaily together. They entered the gates of their families’ gardens and began digging. Rosalie raised her head to watch them, and they gave her curious, envious glances. Envious of her fine clothes, envious of the obviously wealthy man who stood beside her. Rosalie stopped weeping. She tucked her legs beneath her and put a hand on Rogan’s leg to make him sit on the grass beside her.

Then she cradled her head against his shoulder and wept quietly for a very long time. He understood that finally now, for the first time, she could grieve for her lost father and mother, her brother in his cold Russian grave. And he understood that as a young girl she had gone into some terrible shock that prevented her from consciously accepting her loss, but that had instead driven her into schizophrenia and the asylum. She had a chance now to get over it, Rogan thought.

When she had finished weeping, Rosalie sat for a while staring at the village of Bublingshausen and then at the two young girls digging in their gardens. The girls kept glancing up at Rosalie, devouring her expensive clothes with their eyes, coolly inspecting her beauty.

Rogan helped Rosalie to her feet. “Those two girls envy you,” he said.

She nodded and smiled sadly. “I envy them.”

They drove on to Frankfurt and Rogan returned the car to the rental agency office at the airport. Rosalie waited with him until takeoff time. Before he walked down the ramp, she said to him, “Can’t you forget the rest of them; can’t you let them live?”

Rogan shook his head.

Rosalie clung to him. “If I lose you now it would be the end of me. I know it. Please let the others go.”

Rogan said gently, “I can’t. Maybe I could forget about Genco Bari and the Hungarian, Wenta Pajerski. But I could never forgive Klaus von Osteen. And since I have to kill him, I have to kill the others. That’s the way it is.”

She still clung to him. “Let von Osteen go,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. Let him stay alive and then you’ll stay alive, and I’ll be happy, I can live happily.”

“I can’t,” he said.

“I know. He killed your wife and he tried to kill you. But everybody was trying to kill each other then.” She shook her head. “Their crime against you was murder. But it was everybody’s crime then. You would have to kill the whole world to get your revenge.”

Rogan pushed her away from him. “I know all that, everything you’ve just said. I’ve thought about it all these years. I might have forgiven them for killing and torturing Christine. I might have forgiven them for torturing and trying to kill me. But von Osteen did something that I can never forgive. He did something to me that makes it impossible for me to live on the same planet with him, as long as he’s alive. He destroyed me without bullets, without even raising his voice. He was crueler than all the others.” Rogan paused, and he could feel the blood begin to pound against the plate in his skull. “In my dreams I kill him, and then I bring him back to life so I can kill him again.”

They were calling the number of his flight over the loudspeaker. Rosalie kissed him hurriedly and whispered, “I’ll wait in Munich for you. In the same pension. Don’t forget me.”

Rogan kissed her eyes and mouth. “For the first time I hope I come through it alive,” he said. “Before, I didn’t care. I won’t forget you.” He turned and walked down the ramp to the plane.