her to come back. And all the time, she wanted to come. She’s looking for something … He had been an idiot.
He said: “You’ve been lying to me.”
She said: “You’ve been lying to me. That makes us even.”
This is dangerous. I beg you, you have no idea…”
“What I do know is this: my career could have ended because of what happened in this apartment. I could be fired when I get back to New York. I’m being thrown out of this lousy country, and I want to find out why.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
They stood like that for perhaps half a minute: he with his hand to his hair, she with the silver paper knife still pointed at him. Outside, across the Platz, a clock began to chime. March looked at his watch. It was already ten.
“We have no time for this.” He spoke quickly. “Here are the keys to the apartment. This one opens the door downstairs. This one is for the main door up here. This fits the bedside cabinet. That is a desk key. This one” — he held it up- “this, I think, is the key to a safe. Where is it?”
“I don’t know.” Seeing his look of disbelief, she added: “I swear.”
They searched in silence for ten minutes, shifting — furniture, pulling up rugs, looking behind paintings. Suddenly she said: 'This mirror is loose.”
It was a small antique looking glass, maybe thirty centimetres square, above the table on which she had opened the letters. March grasped the ormolu frame. It gave a little but would not come away from the wall.
Try this.” She gave him the knife.
She was right. Two-thirds down the left-hand side, behind the lip of the frame, was a tiny lever. March pressed it with the tip of the paper knife, and felt something yield. The mirror was on a hinge. It swung open to reveal the safe.
He inspected it and swore. The key was not enough. There was also a combination lock.
“Too much for you?” she asked.
“ ‘In adversity,’ ” quoted March, “ ‘the resourceful officer will always discover opportunity.’ ” He picked up the telephone.
EIGHT
Across a distance of five thousand kilometres, President Kennedy flashed his famous smile. He stood behind a cluster of microphones, addressing a crowd in a football stadium. Banners of red, white and blue streamed behind him — “Re-elect Kennedy!” Tour More in Sixty-Four!” He shouted something March did not understand and the crowd cheered back.
“What is he talking about?”
The television cast a blue glow in the darkness of Stuckart’s apartment. The woman translated. “ ‘The Germans have their system and we have ours. But we are all citizens of one planet. And as long as our two nations remember that, I sincerely believe: we can have peace.’ Cue loud applause from dumb audience.”
She had kicked off her shoes and was lying full-length on her stomach in front of the set.
“Ah. Here’s the serious bit.” She waited until he finished speaking, then translated again. “He says he plans to raise human rights questions during his visit in the Fall.” She laughed and shook her head. “God, Kennedy is so full of shit. The only thing he really wants to raise is his vote in November.”
“ 'Human rights'?”
“The thousands of dissidents you people lock up in camps. The millions of Jews who vanished in the war. The torture. The killing. Sorry to mention them, but we have this bourgeois notion that human beings have rights. Where have you been the last twenty years?”
The contempt in her voice jolted him. He had never properly spoken to an American before, had only encountered the occasional tourist — and those few had been chaperoned around the capital, shown only what the Propaganda Ministry wanted them to see, like Red Cross officials on a KZ inspection. Listening to her now it occurred to him she probably knew more about his country’s recent history than he did. He felt he should make some sort of defence but did not know what to say.
“You talk like a politician,” was all he could manage. She did not even bother to reply.
He looked again at the figure on the screen. Kennedy projected an image of youthful vigour, despite his spectacles and balding head.
“Will he win?” he asked.
She was silent. For a moment, he thought she had decided not to speak to him. Then she said: “He will now. He looks in good shape for a man of seventy-five, wouldn’t you say?”
“Indeed.” March was standing a metre back from the window smoking a cigarette, alternately watching the television and watching the square. Traffic was sparse -mostly people returning from dinner or the cinema. A young couple held hands under the statue of Todt. They might be Gestapo; it was hard to tell.
The millions of Jews who vanished in the war… He was risking court martial simply by talking to her. Yet her mind must be a treasure house, full of ill-considered objects which meant nothing to her but would be gold to him. If he could somehow overcome her furious resentment, pick his way around the propaganda…
No. A ridiculous thought. He had problems enough as it was.
A solemn blonde newsreader filled the screen; behind her, a composite picture of Kennedy and the Fuhrer and the single word “Detente”.
Charlotte Maguire had helped herself to a glass of Scotch from Stuckart’s drinks cabinet. Now she raised it to the television in mock salute. To Joseph P. Kennedy: President of the United States — appeaser, anti-Semite, gangster and sonofabitch. May you roast in hell.”
The clock outside struck ten-thirty, ten forty-five, eleven.
She said: “Maybe this friend of yours had second thoughts.”
March shook his head. “He’ll come.”
A few moments later, a battered blue Skoda entered the square. It made one slow circuit of the Platz, then came round again and parked opposite the apartment block. Max Jaeger emerged from the driver’s side; from the other came a small man in a shabby sports jacket and trilby, carrying a doctor’s bag. He squinted up at the fourth floor and backed away, but Jaeger took his arm and propelled him towards the entrance.
In the stillness of the apartment, a buzzer sounded.
“It would be best,” said March, “if you didn’t speak.”
She shrugged. “As you like.”
He went into the hall and picked up the intercom.
“Hello, Max.”
He pressed a switch and unlocked the door. The corridor was empty. After a minute, a soft ping signalled the arrival of the elevator and the little man appeared. He scuttled down the passage and into Stuckart’s hall without uttering a word. He was in his fifties and carried with him, like bad breath, the reek of the back-streets — of furtive deals and triple-entry accounting, of card-tables folded away at the sound of a tread on the stairs. Jaeger followed close behind.
When the man saw March was not alone, he shrank back into the corner.
“Who’s the woman?” He appealed to Jaeger. “You never said anything about a woman. Who’s the woman?”
“Shut up, Willi,” said Max. He gave him a gentle push into the drawing room.
March said: “Never mind her, Willi. Look at this.”
He switched on the lamp, angling it upwards.
Willi Stiefel took in the safe at a glance. “English,” he said. “Casing: one and a half centimetres, high-tensile steel. Fine mechanism. Eight-figure code. Six, if you’re lucky.” He appealed to March: “I beg you, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer. It’s the guillotine for me next time.”
“It’ll be the guillotine for you this time,” said Jaeger, “if you don’t get on with it.”
