Dead Men Living

the father from Norrington’s commanding officer, a colonel who signed himself John Parnell, and which was dated July 2. After the predictable eulogy of Norrington’s bravery and dedication to duty, it read:

I cannot, of course, disclose the nature of Simon’s very special work in these most recent months but I can say he was the only person in the unit with the very necessary qualifications to carry it out. Neither can I give any precise details of how or when he died, although of course we have made strenuous efforts to discover both. His body was returned to us from a Russian-occupied part of the city. The Russian documentation merely indicates that he was found dead, by Russian troops, on or around May 10. You will be aware that at that time there was still sporadic fighting in Berlin, an indication of the bravery of your noncombatant son to which I have already referred.

So much and yet so little, agonized Charlie, easing briefly back into the bucket chair, which creaked like all the other leather furniture. What was the work so very special that only the noncombatant Lieutenant Simon Norrington was able to undertake it in the Russian sector of Berlin in which there was still fighting? But who hadn’t been there at all but thousands of miles away?

There were thirty-two letters, all still in their envelopes and all indated sequence, which was how Charlie read them, searching for people with whom Norrington had worked, particularly for references to the names he’d gotten from the Berlin photograph. A Jessica appeared in the third letter, addressed from London when Norrington was clearly still attached to the War Office, and by the fourth it was obvious she was employed there with him. From the way the next was written, she’d spent a weekend at Kingsclere. Norrington had been glad his father liked her as much as he did, but she disappeared from the correspondence just before Norrington’s transfer to the art- loss unit. Norrington was relieved at the transfer: Bloody French go on all the time as if I was personally responsible for Dunkirk and seem to forget we got almost as many of their soldiers out as we did our own.

There wasn’t another name until Charlie was halfway through, and then it was clearly a nickname, Scotty. Norrington described him as a good man, salt of the earth. But hard. There were frequent references after that, but none of them hinted at particular friendship, more admiration. Then there was someone identified only as J, and as more single initials followed, Charlie guessed, disappointed, at Norrington’s own effort to obey wartime censorship rules. J was a tyrant, but fair, who knows his art. HH was a bully who’d clearly made an early choice about being a criminal himself and decided to step the other way over the line. And then there was the appearance of G, at which Charlie felt the tingle of recognition as he read. The letter was dated February 9, 1945. G was brilliant: I sit at his feet. G saw telltale brush detail-despite his problem-which Norrington missed: three fakes, in one day. It’s good to know the Nazis were cheated but it would have been even better if we thought they’d paid good money instead of stealing them.

By March they were a two-man team with the highest identification rate in the combined group. It was exhilarating to be so immediately close to it all. But the scale of the pillaging is indescribable: so much lost that will never be recovered.

Practically every letter written after Norrington had been posted to Europe exhorted his father to keep Matthew from enlisting, whatever you have to do. War was filthy. Men were animals. It was inconceivable what one could do to another. I don’t want Matthew seeing what I’ve seen, hearing what I’ve heard, doing what I’ve done to conform and despised myself for not being brave enough not to do it. The lastletter was dated April 2. The concluding sentence read: It truly will be over soon. I shall be coming home.

Finally, after fifty-four years, thought Charlie: hardly soon enough.

“Well?” demanded Sir Matthew Norrington from the doorway.

“Your brother probably does deserve a hero’s recognition,” said Charlie.

“Give it to him, then.”

“I need to talk more,” said Charlie. Always more, he thought.

“Tell me about your brother?” asked Charlie, simply.

“Simon was the golden boy,” declared Norrington, at once and admiringly. “There was nothing he couldn’t do or achieve, usually twice as quickly and twice as well as anybody else. Everything came naturally, easily, to him. Our mother was French, so we grew up bilingual. I stopped there, but Simon didn’t. He was practically as fluent in German and went on from Greek-which he took as part of art history-to more than passable Russian.”

“He spoke German and Russian!” seized Charlie. There was a reassuring foot twinge.

“Both, very well,” confirmed Norrington.

Abruptly recalling what now seemed a long-ago half thought, Charlie said, “What about reading it?”

“Of course,” said Norrington, appearing surprised at the qualification. “He read both as well as he spoke both.”

“He left the War Office at the end of 1943, to join the specialized art unit?”

“Yes.”

“But obviously didn’t go to Europe until after June 1944-after the invasion?”

“Almost immediately after: before the end of June. That was his job, trying to identify the national heritages that had been plundered and trace where they’d gone. He needed quick access to captured Germans, before they were dispersed.”

As fifteen Germans were dispersed to Yakutsk, recalled Charlie. “Did he ever get leave, come home after being posted abroad?”

“Once,” said Norrington. “December 1944. Father had his first heart attack. Simon was in Belgium then, I think. Wherever, hewangled a compassionate trip. Just forty-eight hours.”

“Did you talk about what he was doing?”

“Of course. It upset him, the degree of Nazi looting. It was so complete: whole museums, galleries, stripped.”

Charlie paused, unsure how to phrase his question, hoping for the answer he wanted but not wanting to lead. “What about anything else?”

Norrington, who had resumed his former seat, stared steadily across at Charlie. “You need to explain that.”

“Did you ever get the impression, from anything that Simon said, that his function had been in any way expanded-that he’d been given a role beyond the location and recovery of looted art?”

Norrington took a long time to answer. “Nothing specific,” the man said, finally.

“What wasn’t specific?” persisted Charlie, refusing to give up.

“There was something about the languages he could speak-that he was often called upon by other people, in other units, to help them.”

“Did he say which other units?”

The older man shook his head. “Not that I can remember.”

He couldn’t avoid leading, Charlie accepted. “Nothing about military intelligence? Intelligence of any sort?”

“No,” said Norrington, positively.

“Who was Jessica?” demanded Charlie, abandoning one direction for another.

“One of the personal things I mentioned.”

Charlie waited.

“Someone he met in London. There was talk of an engagement. They had a flat, in Pimlico. He had to interpret one night at a reception. Churchill, de Gaulle, a lot of Roosevelt’s staff; America was in the war by late 1943, remember. There was an air raid. When he got back to Pimlico, their block had been destroyed by a land mine. Jessica was one of the ten who died.”

“What about people Simon worked with?” Charlie hurried on. “Did he talk about any in particular? Refer to