They say impending pain offers the mind the purest aid to concentration.
Doubtless Mnller would have known that. Thinking about the lethal pill he had promised me if I told him whatever it was he wanted to hear helped me to remember something vital. Twisting round my handcuffs, I reached down into my trouser pocket, and tugged out the lining with my little finger, allowing the two pills I had taken from Heim's surgery to roll into my palm.
I wasn't even sure why I had taken them at all. Curiosity perhaps. Or maybe it was some subconscious prompt which had told me I might have need of a painless exit myself. For a long time I just stared at the tiny cyanide capsules with a mixture of relief and horrific fascination. After a while I hid one pill in my trouser-turnup, which left the one I had decided I would keep in my mouth the one that would in all probability kill me. With an appreciation of irony that was much exaggerated by my situation, I reflected that I had Arthur Nebe to thank for diverting these lethal pills from the secret agents for whom they had been created to the top brass in the SS, and from them to me. Perhaps the pill in my hand had been Nebe's own. It is of such speculations, however improbable, that a man's philosophy consists during his last remaining hours.
I slipped the pill into my mouth and held it gingerly between my back molars.
When the time came, would I even have the guts to chew the thing? My tongue pushed the pill over the edge of my tooth and into the corner of my cheek. I rubbed my fingers over my face and could feel it through the flesh. Would anyone see it? The only light in the cell came from a bare bulb fixed to one of the wooden rafters seemingly with nothing but cobwebs. All the same I couldn't help thinking that the outline of the pill in my mouth was very much visible.
When a key scraped in the mortice, I realized that I would soon find out.
The Latvian came through the door holding his big Colt in one hand and a small tray in the other.
'Get away from the door,' he said thickly.
'What's this?' I said, sliding backwards on my backside. 'A meal? Perhaps you could tell the management that what I'd like most is a cigarette.'
'Lucky to get anything at all,' he growled. Carefully he squatted down and laid the tray on the dusty floor. There was a jug of coffee and a large slice of strudel. 'The coffee's fresh. The strudel is homemade.'
For a brief, stupid second I considered rushing him, before reminding myself that a man in my weakened condition could rush about as quickly as a frozen waterfall. And I would have had no more chance of overpowering the huge Latvian than I had of engaging him in Socratic dialogue. He seemed to sense some flicker of hope on my face however, even though the pill resting on my gum remained undetected. 'Go ahead,' he said, 'try something. I wish you would; I'd like to blow your kneecap off.' Laughing like a retarded grizzly bear he backed out of my cell and closed the door with a loud bang.
From the size of him, I judged Rainis to be the kind who enjoyed his food. When he wasn't killing or hurting people it was probably his only real pleasure.
Perhaps he was even something of a glutton. It occurred to me that if I were to leave the strudel untouched, Rainis might be unable to resist eating it himself.
That if I were to put one of my cyanide capsules inside the filling then later on, perhaps long after I myself was dead, the dumb Latvian would eat my cake and die. It might, I reflected, be a comforting thought as I left the world, that he would be swiftly following me.
I decided to drink the coffee while I thought about it. Was a lethal pill hot-water-soluble? I didn't know. So I popped the capsule out of my mouth, and thinking that it might as well be that pill which I used to put my pathetic plan into action, I pushed it into the fruit filling with my forefinger.
I could happily have eaten it myself, pill and all, I was so hungry. My watch told me that over fifteen hours had passed since my Viennese breakfast, and the coffee tasted good. I decided that it could only have been Arthur Nebe who had instructed the Latvian to bring me supper.
Another hour passed. There were eight to go before they would come to take me back upstairs. I would wait until there was no hope, no possibility of reprieve before I took my own life. I tried to sleep, but without much success. I was beginning to understand what Becker must have felt like, facing the gallows. At least I was better off than he was: I still had my lethal pill.
It was almost midnight when I heard the key in the lock again. Quickly I transferred my second pill from my trouser-turnup to my cheek in case they decided to search my clothes. But it was not Rainis who came to fetch my tray but Arthur Nebe. He held an automatic in his hand.
'Don't force me to use this, Bernie,' he said. 'You know I won't hesitate to shoot you if I have to. You'd best get back against that far wall.'
'What's this? A social call?' I dragged myself back from the door. He tossed a packet of cigarettes and some matches after me.
'You might say that.'
'I hope you're not here to talk about old times, Arthur. I'm not feeling very sentimental right now.' I looked at the cigarettes. Winston. 'Does Mnller know you're smoking American nails, Arthur? Be careful. You might get into trouble: he's got some strange ideas about the Amis.' I lit one and inhaled with slow satisfaction. 'Still, bless you for this.'
Nebe drew a chair round the door and sat down. 'Mviller has his own ideas of where the Org is going,' he said. 'But there's no doubting his patriotism or his determination. He's quite ruthless.'
'I can't say I'd noticed.'
'He has an unfortunate tendency to judge other people by his own insensitive standards, however. Which means that he really does believe you are capable of keeping your mouth shut and allowing that girl to die.' He smiled. 'I, of course, know you rather better than that. Gunther is a sentimental sort of man, I told him. Even a little bit of a fool. It would be just like him to risk his neck for someone he hardly knew. Even a chocolady. It was the same in Minsk, I said. He was perfectly prepared to go to the front line rather than kill innocent people. People to whom he owed nothing.'
'That doesn't make me a hero, Arthur. Just a human being.'
'It makes you someone Mnller is used to dealing with: a man with a principle.
Mnller knows what men will take and still stay silent. He's seen lots of people sacrifice their friends and then themselves in order to keep silent. He's a fanatic. Fanaticism is the only thing he understands. And as a result he thinks you're a fanatic. He's convinced there's a possibility that you might be holding out on him. As I said, I know you rather better than that. If you had known why Linden was killed I think you would have said so.'
'Well, it's nice to know somebody believes me. It'll make being turned into this year's vintage all the more bearable. Look, Arthur, why are you telling me this?
So I can tell you that you're a better judge of character than Mnller?'
'I was thinking: if you were to tell Mnller exactly what he wants to hear, then it might save you a lot of pain. I'd hate to see an old friend suffer. And believe me, he'll make you suffer.'
'I don't doubt it. It's not this coffee that's helped to keep me awake, I can tell you. Come on, what is this? The old friend and foe routine? Like I said, I don't know why Linden was canned.'
'No, but I could tell you.'
I winced as the cigarette smoke stung my eyes. 'Let me get this straight,' I said uncertainly. 'You're going to tell me what happened to Linden, in order that I can spill it to Mnller, and thereby save myself from a fate worse than death, right?'
'That's about the size of it.'
I shrugged, painfully. 'I don't see that I've got anything to lose.' I grinned.
'Of course, you could just let me escape, Arthur. For old times' sake.'
'We weren't going to talk about old times, you said so yourself. Anyway, you know too much. You've seen Mnller. You've seen me. I'm dead, remember?'
'Nothing personal, Arthur, but I wish you were.' I took another cigarette and lit myself with the butt of the first. 'All right, unpack it. Why was Linden killed?'
'Linden had a German-American background. He even read German at Cornell University. During the war he had some minor intelligence role, and afterwards worked as a denazification officer. He was a clever man, and soon had a nice racket going for himself, selling Persil certificates, clearances for Old Comrades, you know the sort of thing. Then he joined the CIC as a desk-investigator and Crowcass liaison officer at the Berlin Documents Centre.
