The One from the Other

He pushed the pipe back in his smug little face and rocked on a pair of shoes that were decorated with edelweiss, oak leaves, and Bavarian blue-and-white ribbons. They lacked only a Blue Max or an Iron Cross to be the most German-looking shoes I had ever seen. He said, 'This is a shop, not a museum.'

'Not so as you'd notice,' I said, and went out quickly, the shop bell ringing in my ear.

'I bet this place is real cozy in winter,' I said to Henkell when I was back in the car. 'The locals are about as affable as a cold pitchfork.'

'They're really quite friendly when you get to know them,' he said.

'Funny. That's the same thing people say after their dog has bitten you.'

We drove on toward the southwest of Partenkirchen, toward the foot of the Zugspitze, past the Post Hotel, the American Officers' Club, the General Patton Hotel, the headquarters of the U.S. Army Southeastern Area Command, and the Green Arrow Ski Lodge. I might as well have been in Denver, Colorado. I had never been in Denver, Colorado, but I imagined it probably looked a lot like Partenkirchen. Patriotic, affected, overornamented, unfriendly in a friendly kind of way, and, ultimately, more than a little absurd.

Henkell drove down a street of typical old Alpine houses and pulled into the driveway of a two-story white stucco villa with a wraparound wooden balcony and an overhanging roof that was as big as the deck on an aircraft carrier. On the wall was a fresco of a German Olympic skier. I knew he was German because his right arm appeared to be reaching for something, but just what this might be there was no way of telling, as someone had painted over his hand and wrist. And perhaps only a German would now have realized what the skier's right hand had really been up to. Everything in Garmisch-Partenkirchen looked so committed to Uncle Sam and his welfare that it was hard to believe Uncle Adolf had ever been here.

I stepped out of the Mercedes and glanced up at the Zugspitze that hung over the houses like a petrified wave of gray seawater. It was a hell of a lot of geology.

Hearing gunshots I flinched, probably even ducked a bit, and then looked behind me. Henkell laughed. 'The Amis have a skeet range on the other side of the river,' he said, walking toward the front door. 'Everything you see around here was requisitioned by the Amis. They let me use this place for my work. But before the war it was the science lab for the local hospital, on Maximilianstrasse.'

'Doesn't the hospital need a lab anymore?'

'After the war the hospital became the prison hospice,' he said, searching for his door key. 'For incurably sick German POWs.'

'What was wrong with them?'

'Psychiatric cases, most of them, poor fellows,' he said. 'Shell shock, that kind of thing. Not my line really. Most of them died following an outbreak of viral meningitis. The rest they transferred to a hospital in Munich, about six months ago. The hospital is now being turned into a rest and recreation area for American service personnel.'

He opened the door and went inside. But I stayed where I was, staring at a car parked across the street. It was a car I had seen before. A nice, two-door Buick Roadmaster. Shiny green, with whitewall tires, a rear end as big as an Alpine hillside, and a front grille like a dentist's star patient.

I followed Henkell through the door and into a narrow hallway that was noticeably warm. On the walls were several photographs of winter Olympians--Maxi Herber, Ernst Baier, Willy Bognor taking the Olympic oath, and a couple of ski jumpers who must have been thinking they could make it all the way to Valhalla. The air in the house had a chemical edge to it, as well as something decayed and botanical, like a pair of wet gardening gloves.

'Shut the door behind you,' yelled Henkell. 'We have to keep it warm in here.'

As I turned to close the door I heard voices and when I turned back, I found the corridor blocked by someone I recognized. It was the American who had persuaded me to dig up my back garden in Dachau.

'Well, if it isn't the kraut with principles,' he said.

'Coming from you, that's not much of a compliment,' I said. 'Stolen any Jewish gold lately?'

He grinned. 'Not lately. There's not so much of it about these days. And you? How's the hotel business?' He didn't wait for my answer and, without taking his eyes off me, inclined his head back across his shoulder and shouted, 'Hey, Heinrich. Where did you find this kraut? And why the hell is he here?'

'I told you.' Henkell stepped back into the corridor. 'This is the man I met at the hospital.'

'You mean he's the detective you were talking about?'

'Yes,' said Henkell. 'Have you two met before?'

The American was wearing a different sports coat. This one was gray and cashmere. He wore a gray shirt, a gray woolen tie, gray flannels, and a pair of black wingtips. His glasses were different, too. These were tortoiseshell. But he still looked like the cleverest boy in the class.

'Only in my previous life,' I said. 'When I was a hotelkeeper.'

'You had a hotel?'

Henkell looked as if he found the idea of that absurd. Which it was, of course.

'And guess where it was?' said the American, with amused contempt. 'Dachau. About a mile from the old camp.' He laughed out loud. 'Jesus, that's like opening a health spa in a funeral parlor.'

'It was good enough for you and your friend,' I remarked. 'The amateur dentist.'

Henkell laughed. 'Does he mean Wolfram Romberg?' he asked the American.

'He means Wolfram Romberg,' said the American.

Henkell came along the corridor and put a hand on my shoulder. 'Major Jacobs works for the Central Intelligence Agency,' he explained, guiding me into the next room.

'Somehow I didn't figure him for an army chaplain,' I said.

'He's been a good friend to me and Eric. A very good friend. The CIA provides this building and some money for our research.'

'But somehow it never seems to be quite enough,' Jacobs said pointedly.

'Medical research can be expensive,' said Henkell.

We went into an office with a neat, professional, medical look. A large filing cabinet on the floor. A Biedermeier bookcase with dozens of medical texts inside, and a human skull on top. A first-aid cabinet on the wall next to a photograph of President Truman. An Art Deco drinks tray with a large selection of liquor bottles and mixers. A rococo walnut writing desk that was buried under several feet of papers and notebooks, with another human skull being used as a paperweight. Four or five cherry-wood chairs. And a bronze of a man's head with a little plaque that said the likeness was of Alexander Fleming. Henkell pointed through two sets of sliding glass doors at a very well equipped laboratory.

'Microscopes, centrifuges, spectrometers, vacuum equipment,' he said. 'It all costs money. The major here has sometimes had to find several unauthorized streams of revenue in order to keep us going. Including Oberscharfuhrer Romberg and his Dachau nest egg.'

'Right,' growled Jacobs. He drew aside the net curtain and stared suspiciously out of the office window into the back garden of the villa. A couple of birds had begun a noisy fight. There is a lot to be said for the way Nature handles itself. I wouldn't have minded taking a sock at Jacobs myself.

I smiled. 'It's certainly none of my business what the major did with all those poor people's stolen valuables.'

'You got that right,' said Jacobs. 'Kraut.'

'What exactly are you working on, Heinrich?' I asked.

Jacobs looked at Henkell. 'For Christ's sake, don't tell him,' he said.

'Why not?' asked Henkell.

'You don't know anything about the guy,' he said. 'And have you forgotten that you and Eric are working for the American government? I would use the word 'secret,' only I don't think you guys know how to spell it.'

'He's staying in my house,' said Henkell. 'I trust Bernie.'

'I'm still trying to figure out why that is,' said Jacobs. 'Or is it just an SS thing? Old comrades. What?'

I was still wondering a little about that myself.

'I told you why,' said Henkell. 'Eric gets a bit lonely, sometimes. Possibly even suicidal.'

'Jesus, I wish I was as lonely as Eric is,' snorted Jacobs. 'That broad who looks after him, Engelbertina, or whatever her name is. How anyone could be lonely with her around sure beats me.'

'He does have a point,' I said.

'You see? Even the kraut agrees with me,' said Jacobs.