Merten took a drag on his cigarette and then used it to light another. “All right, it’s a deal,” he said, not waiting for my answer; his assumption that I was as greedy as Witzel or Schramma bothered me. But it bothered me more that I even paused to consider what he’d said. “So I’ll cut you in for twenty-five percent. That’s fair, given that all of the expenses have been mine. Also I have partners in Bonn I need to pay off. Politicians I owe favors to. But look here, instead of driving to Athens, we should head north, to Alexandroúpoli, and cross over into Turkey. Then, one day, in the not-so-distant future, when Alois Brunner has given up looking for me, we can come back down here, charter a ship, and make another attempt to retrieve the gold. I can assure you it’s quite safe where it is. Safer than in any Greek bank. After all these years another few months won’t make any difference.”
I shook my head but I can’t say I wasn’t tempted. Becoming very rich has its attractions for someone with nothing in the bank, not even a bank account. “No thanks, Max.”
“What do you mean, no thanks? Are you mad? Don’t you want to be as rich as the Count of Monte Cristo? Richer.”
“Not really. Not while I still have a conscience. That money is covered with the blood of sixty thousand dead Jews. My mind would be on them every time I bought myself another Caribbean island.”
“Think about what you’re saying for a moment, Bernie. Are you seriously suggesting we just leave the gold there for the fishes to enjoy?”
“So maybe you should tell someone about it. Maybe even hand it over to the Greek government so they could return it to the Jews. Besides, all your partners have an unfortunate habit of finding themselves double-crossed, or dead. I’d rather take my chances with the Greek police than go on a sea voyage with you. Frankly I wouldn’t trust you on a rowing boat in the Tiergarten. Lieutenant Leventis has my passport in his desk drawer. That’s all I need now. You can come back here and go diving for gold another time, and with someone else. Me, I just want to go home. Thanks to you I have a nice respectable job, a salary. I even have a company car. That and a good night’s sleep are worth all the sunken treasure there is.”
“For old times’ sake I’ll make it thirty percent.”
“Look, forget about the gold for now and let’s get going.”
“Do you honestly think that those Jews would ever see a penny of that money if we just handed it over to the Greek government, or ours?” Merten uttered a scornful laugh. “No, of course not. The governments and the banks are the biggest robbers on the damn planet. They steal from people every day, only they call it taxation. Or interest on a mortgage. Or a fine imposed by a court. This new EEC they’ve made is just another way of robbing us all with yet more taxation and fines in the name of peace and prosperity. And those Jews, how the hell do you think they got all that gold in the first place? From lending money. By robbing us. By being bankers in their turn.”
“I’m afraid all that sounds very cynical, Max. But I guess I’m not surprised. You’re a lawyer, after all.”
“You’re not an educated man, Bernie. Are you? I mean you got your Abitur, but you never went to university. If you had, then you’d know it’s intellectually respectable to be cynical. It’s the only way you can see the lies for what they are. Unless you’re cynical about things you might as well give up on life. You think I’m cynical? I’m an amateur by comparison with what governments do. These respectable men—our leaders—are the same leaders, the same men who just made a war in which fifty million people died. It’s never the cynical men who start wars but the virtuous, principled ones. Adenauer, Karamanlis, Eisenhower, and Eden, the leaders of the free world, but it’s the same old lie called democracy.”
“There was nothing virtuous about Hitler.”
“Yes, but it was Neville Chamberlain who declared war on Germany, wasn’t it? Kind of makes my point.”
“Nice idea, Max. But still, thanks but no thanks.”
“I’ve misjudged you, Bernie. After everything that’s happened to you is it possible you still believe in good? That you think there’s some morality in this lousy world? Experience should have taught you by now that good simply doesn’t exist, old friend. Not for you, not for anyone, but I have to say especially not for you. People are generally wasting their time if they think they can overcome evil. It’s nonsense. In this world there is nearly always only evil and degrees of evil. Any good that exists results only when an organism such as a human being like you or me acts in his own self-interest out of biological necessity. That’s how things prosper and survive. By looking out for number one. That’s certainly been true for you.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said, now feeling a sense of disquiet at a vague suspicion I had that there was something in what he’d said. Wasn’t I selling him to the Greeks out of my own self-interest? “I can’t ever believe that.”
“Pity. You know, your conscience won’t bring any of those dead Jews back, Bernie. Most of those poor devils from Salonika don’t have any families to whom one could return the money, even if one wanted to. Brunner and Eichmann and others like them made absolutely sure of that. They’re all gone; any of the ones who survived have good reason to lie low themselves, out of shame. The
