The One from the Other

TWENTY-TWO

Days passed. I got a little better. The weekend came along and Dr. Henkell said I was fit to travel. He had a newish, maroon-colored Mercedes four-door sedan that he had gone all the way to the factory in Sindelfingen to collect, and of which he was very proud. He let me sit in the back so I would be more comfortable on the fifty-eight-mile journey to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. We left Munich on Autobahn Number 2, a very well-engineered highway that took us through Starnberg, where I told Henkell about the eponymous baron and the fabulous house where he lived and the Maybach Zeppelin he was using to run down to the shops. And, because he liked cars a lot, I also told him about the baron’s daughter, Helene Elisabeth, and the Porsche 356 she drove.

“That’s a nice car,” he said. “But I like Mercedes.” And he proceeded to tell me about some of the other cars that were stored in his Ramersdorf garage. These now included my own Hansa, which Henkell had kindly driven away from the place where I had left it on the night I had been picked up by the comrades.

“Cars are a bit of a hobby of mine,” he confessed as we drove on to Traubing and into the Alpine foothills. “So is climbing. I’ve climbed all of the big peaks in the Ammergau Alps.”

“Including the Zugspitze?” The Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain, was why most people went to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the first place.

“That’s not a climb,” he said. “That’s a walk. You’ll be walking up it yourself, in a couple of weeks.” He shook his head. “But my real interest is tropical medicine. There’s a small laboratory in Partenkirchen that the Amis let me use. I’m rather friendly with one of their senior officers. He comes to play chess with Eric once or twice a week. You’ll like him. He speaks perfect German and he’s a damned good chess player.”

“How did you meet?”

Henkell laughed. “I was his prisoner. There used to be a POW camp in Partenkirchen. I ran the hospital for him. The lab was part of the hospital. The Amis have their own doctor, of course. Nice fellow, but he’s not much more than a pill pusher. Anything surgical, they usually ask me.”

“Isn’t it a bit unusual researching tropical medicine in the Alps?” I said.

“On the contrary,” said Henkell. “You see, the air is very dry and very pure. So is the water. Which makes it an ideal place to avoid specimen contamination.”

“You’re a man of many parts,” I told him.

He seemed to like that.

Just after Murnau, our road crossed the Murnauer marshes. Beyond Farchant, the basin of Garmisch-Partenkirchen opened out and we had our first view of the Zugspitze and the other Wetterstein Mountains. Coming from Berlin, I rather disliked mountains, especially the Alps. They always looked sort of melted, as if someone had carelessly left them out in the sun too long. Two or three miles farther on, the road divided, my ears popped, and we were in Sonnenbichl, just a short way north of Garmisch.

“The real action is down in Garmisch,” he explained. “All the Olympic facilities, of course, from ’thirty-six. There are some hotels—most of them requisitioned by the Amis—a couple of bowling alleys, the officers’ club, one or two bars and restaurants, the Alpine Theater, and the cable car stations for the Wank and the Zugspitze. Pretty much everything else comes under the control of the Southeastern Command of the U.S. Third Army. There’s even a hotel named after General Patton. In fact, there are two, now that I think of it. The Amis like it here. They come here from all over Germany for what they call R-and-R. Rest and recreation. They play tennis, they play golf, they shoot skeets, and in winter they ski and go ice-skating. The ice rink at the Wintergarten is something to see. The local girls are friendly, and they even show American movies at two of the four movie theaters. So, what’s not to like? A lot of them are from towns in the U.S. that are not so different from Garmisch-Partenkirchen.”

“With one crucial difference,” I said. “Those towns don’t have an army of occupation.”

Henkell shrugged. “They’re not so bad when you get to know them.”

“So are some Alsatian dogs,” I said, sourly. “But I wouldn’t want one around the house all day.”

“Here we are at last,” he said, turning off the road. He drove onto a gravel driveway that led between two clumps of lofty pines and across an empty green field at the end of which stood a three-story wooden house with a roof as steep as Garmisch’s famous ninety-meter ski jump. The first thing you noticed about the place was that one wall was covered with a large heraldic coat of arms. This was a gold shield with black spots, and three main devices: a decrescent moon, a cannon with some cannonballs, and a raven. It all meant that the suit of armor from whom Henkell was probably descended had enjoyed shooting ravens, by the light of the silvery moon, with a piece of artillery. Beneath all this decorative nonsense was an inscription. It read “Sero sed serio,” which was Latin for “We’re richer than you are.” The house itself was nicely positioned on the edge of another field that descended steeply into the valley, affording the occupants a superb view. Views were what counted in this part of the world and this particular house enjoyed the sort of view normally obtained only from an eagle’s nest. Nothing interrupted it, except a cloud or two. And perhaps the odd rainbow.

“I guess your family have never suffered from acrophobia,” I said. Or poverty, I felt like adding.

“It’s quite a sight, isn’t it?” he said, pulling up outside the front door. “I never get tired of looking at that view.”

Neat piles of logs framed the front door like so many cigarettes. Above the door was a smaller version of the coat of arms on the exterior wall. The door was the robust kind that looked as if it had been borrowed from Odin’s castle. It opened to reveal a man in a wheelchair with a rug on his lap and a uniformed nurse at his shoulder. The nurse looked warmer than the rug and I knew instinctively which one of them I’d have preferred to have had on my lap. I was getting better.

The man in the chair was heavyset with longish, fair hair and a beard you might have picked for an important chat with Moses. The mustaches were waxed and left his face like the quillions on a broad-sword. He wore a blue suede Schliersee jacket with staghorn buttons, a Landhaus-style shirt, and an edelweiss collar-chain made of bits of horn, pewter, and pearl. On his feet were black Miesbacher shoes with a high heel and a fold-over tongue. They were the kind of shoes you wear when you want to slap someone wearing leather shorts. He was smoking a briar pipe that smelled strongly of vanilla and reminded me of burnt ice cream. He looked like Heidi’s Uncle Alp.

If Heidi had grown up she might have looked something like the nurse of the man in the wheelchair. She wore a pink knee-length dirndl, a white low-cut blouse with short puffy sleeves, a white cotton apron, lacy kneesocks, and the same sort of sensible shoes as her bearded charge. I knew she was supposed to be a nurse, because she had a little upside-down watch pinned to her blouse and a white cap on her head. She was blond, but not the sunny kind of blond, or the gilded kind, but the enigmatic, wistful kind you might find lost in some sylvan glade. Her mouth was slightly sulky and her eyes were a sort of lavender color. I tried not to notice her bosom. And then I tried again, only it kept on singing to me like it was perched on a rock in the Rhine River and I was some poor, dumb sailor with an ear for music. All women are nurses at bottom. It’s in their nature to nurture. Some look more like nurses than others. And some women manage to make being a nurse look like Delilah’s last stratagem. The nurse at Henkell’s house was the second kind. With a face and figure like hers she would have made my old army great-coat look like a silk dressing gown.

Henkell caught me licking my lips and grinned as he helped me out of the Mercedes. “I told you you would like it here,” he said.

“I love it when you’re right like this,” I said.

We went into the house, where Henkell introduced me. The man in the wheelchair was Eric Gruen. The nurse’s name was Engelbertina Zehner. Engelbertina means “bright angel.” Somehow it suited her. They both seemed quite excited to see me. Then again the house wasn’t exactly the kind of place you would just drop in unannounced. Not unless you were wearing a parachute. They were probably glad of new company, even if the company was wrapped up in himself. We all shook hands. Gruen’s hand was soft and a little moist, as if he was nervous about something. Engelbertina’s hand was as hard and rough as a sheet of sandpaper, which shocked me a little and made me think that private nursing had its tough side. I sat down on a big, comfortable sofa and let out a big, comfortable sigh.

“That’s quite a walk,” I said, glancing back at the enormous drawing room. Engelbertina was already stuffing a cushion behind my back. That was when I noticed the tattoo on the top of her left forearm. Which went a long way to explaining how it was her hands were so tough. The rest of her must have been pretty tough, too. But for now I put it out of my mind. I was trying to get away from things like that. Besides, something good was cooking in the kitchen and, for the first time in weeks, I felt hungry. Another woman appeared in the doorway. She was attractive, too, in the same older, larger, slightly worn way that I was attractive myself. Her name was Raina, and she was the cook.

“Herr Gunther is a private detective,” said Henkell.

“That must be interesting,” said Gruen.

“When it gets interesting, that’s usually the time to reach for a gun,” I said.

“How does one get into that line of work?” asked Gruen, relighting his pipe. Engelbertina didn’t seem to like the smoke and waved it away from her face with the flat of her hand. Gruen ignored her and I made a mental note not to, and to smoke outside for a while.

“I used to be a cop in Berlin,” I said. “A detective with KRIPO. Before the war.”

“Did you ever catch a murderer?” she asked.

Normally I’d flick a question like that off my lapel. But I wanted to impress her. “Once,” I said. “A long time ago. A strangler called Gormann.”

“I remember that case,” said Gruen. “That was a famous case.”

I shrugged. “Like I said. It was a long time ago.”

“We shall have to watch our step, Engelbertina,” said Gruen. “Otherwise Herr Gunther will know all our nastiest little secrets. I expect he’s already started sizing us up.”

“Relax,” I told them. “Truth is, I never was much of a cop. I have a problem with authority.”

“That’s hardly very German of you, old boy,” said Gruen.

“That’s why I was in the hospital,” I said. “I got warned off a case I was working on. And the warning didn’t take.”

“I suppose you have to be very observant,” said Engelbertina.

“If I was, maybe I wouldn’t have got myself beaten up.”

“Good point,” agreed Gruen.

For a minute he and Engelbertina discussed a favorite detective story, which was my cue to switch off, briefly. I hate detective stories. I glanced at my surroundings. At the red-and-white-checked curtains, the green shutters, the hand-painted cabinets, the thick fur rugs, the two-hundred-year-old oak beams, the four-poster fire-place, the paintings of vines and flowers, and—no Alpine home was complete without one—an old ox harness. The room was big but I still felt as cozy as a slice of bread in an electric toaster.

Lunch was served. I ate it. More than I had expected to eat. Then I had a sleep in an armchair. When I woke up I found myself alone with Gruen. He seemed to have been there for a while. He was looking at me in a curious sort of way that I felt deserved some kind of explanation.

“Was there something you wanted, Herr Gruen?”

“No, no,” he said. “And please, call me Eric.” He wheeled his chair back a little. “It’s just that I had the feeling we’d met somewhere before, you and I. Your face seems very familiar to me.”

I shrugged. “I guess I must have that kind of face,” I said, remembering the American back at my hotel in Dachau. I recalled him making a similar remark. “I guess it’s lucky I became a cop,” I added. “Otherwise my photograph might get me pinched for something I hadn’t done.”

“Were you ever in Vienna?” he asked. “Or Bremen?”

“Vienna, yes,” I said. “But not Bremen.”

“Bremen. It’s not an interesting town,” he said. “Not like Berlin.”

“It seems that these days, there’s nowhere quite as interesting as Berlin,” I said. “That’s why I don’t live there. Too dangerous. If ever there’s another war, Berlin is where it will start.”

“But it could hardly be more dangerous than Munich,” said Gruen. “For you, I mean. According to Heinrich, the men who beat you up almost killed you.”

“Almost,” I said. “By the way, where is Dr. Henkell?”

“Gone down to the laboratory, in Partenkirchen. We won’t see him again until dinner. Maybe not even then. Not now that you’re here, Herr Gunther.”

“Bernie, please.”

He bowed his head politely. “What I mean is, he won’t feel obliged to have dinner with me, as he usually does.” He leaned across, took hold of my hand, and squeezed it companionably. “I’m very glad to have you here. It gets pretty lonely here, sometimes.”

“You have Raina,” I said. “And Engelbertina. Don’t ask me to feel sorry for you.”

“Oh, they’re both very nice, of course. Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t know what to do without Engelbertina to look after me. But a man needs another man to talk to. Raina stays in the kitchen and keeps to herself. And Engelbertina isn’t much of a conversationalist. I daresay that’s not so very surprising. She’s had a hard life. I expect she’ll tell you all about it in due course. When she’s ready.”

I nodded, remembering the number tattooed on Engelbertina’s forearm. With the possible exception of Erich Kaufmann, the Jewish lawyer who had given me my first case in Munich, I hadn’t ever met a Jew from one of the Nazi death camps. Most of them were dead, of course. The rest were in Israel or America. And the only reason I knew about the number was because I had read a magazine article about Jewish prisoners being tattooed and, at the time, it had struck me that at least a Jew could wear such a tattoo with a certain amount of pride. My own SS number, tattooed under my arm, had been removed, rather painfully, with the aid of a cigarette lighter. “Is she Jewish?” I asked. I didn’t know if Zehner was a Jewish name. But I could see no other explanation for the blue numbers on her arm.

Gruen nodded. “She was in Auschwitz-Birkenau. That was one of the worst camps. It’s near Kraków, in Poland.”

I felt the eyebrows lift on my forehead. “Does she know? About you and Heinrich? And about me? That we were all in the SS?”

“What do you think?”

“I think if she knew she would be on the first train to the DP camp at Landsberg,” I said. “And then on the next ship for Israel. Why on earth would she stay?” I shook my head. “I don’t think I’m going to like it here after all.”

“Well, you’re in for a surprise,” Gruen said, almost proudly. “She does know. About me and Heinrich, anyway. What’s more, she doesn’t care.”

“Good God, why? I don’t understand that at all.”

“It’s because after the war,” said Gruen, “she became a Roman Catholic. She believes in forgiveness and she believes in the work being done at the laboratory.” He frowned. “Oh, don’t look so surprised, Bernie. Her conversion is not without precedent. Jews were the first Christians, you know.” He shook his head in wonder. “For how she’s dealt with what happened to her, I really admire her.”

“Hard not to, I suppose. When you look at her.”

“Besides, all that insanity is behind us.”

“So I was led to believe.”

“Forgive and forget. That’s what Engelbertina says.”

“Funny thing about forgiveness,” I said. “Someone has to look and act like they’re sorry for there to be any chance of real forgiveness.”

“Everyone in Germany is sorry for what happened,” said Gruen. “You believe that, don’t you?”

“Sure we’re sorry,” I said. “We’re sorry we got beat. We’re sorry our cities got bombed to rubble. We’re sorry our country is occupied by the armies of four other countries. We’re sorry our soldiers are accused of war crimes and imprisoned in Landsberg. We’re sorry we lost, Eric. But not for much else. I just don’t see the evidence.”

Gruen let out a sigh. “Maybe you’re right,” he said.

I shrugged back at him. “What the hell do I know? I’m just a detective.”

“Come now,” he said with a smile. “Aren’t you supposed to know who did it? Who committed the crime? You have to be right about that, don’t you?”

“People don’t want cops to be right,” I said. “They want a priest to be right. Or a government. Even a lawyer, on occasion. But never a cop. It’s only in books that people want cops to be right. Most of the time they much prefer us to be wrong about nearly everything. That makes them feel superior, I suppose. Besides, Germany’s all through with people who were always right. What we need now are a few honest mistakes.”

Gruen was looking miserable. I smiled at him and said: “Hell, Eric, you said you wanted to have some real conversation. It looks like you got it.”