“I’m trying to cut down so I make myself wait until I have a drink in my hand before I can light one.”
“That’s not the way to cut down.”
“What would you recommend?”
“You could try having a drink only when you’re celebrating murdering another old Nazi.”
“To be honest we don’t do that anymore. We used to, of course. Grawitz, Giesler. Geschke. Back in the day we were very active all over Europe.”
“Did they only give you the Gs? You’re making me nervous again. My name is Ganz, remember?”
“These days we’re keen to show ourselves in a better light, as a democratic country with fair trials and proper legal procedure. That’s why we wanted Brunner, with a B. To give him a fair trial in front of the whole world before we hanged him.”
“I like your idea of justice, lady. It doesn’t suffer from any nit-picking jurisdictional doubt. Trial first. Then the hanging. And to hell with any reasonable doubt.”
“We can’t afford doubt. Not when we are surrounded by our enemies. Syria. Jordan. Egypt. Eventually we will have to defend ourselves, most likely against all three at once. This makes for a certain conviction in everything we do.”
“I noticed that about you the last time we sat down together. Tell me something. Did you really have a guy with a rifle on the rooftop? Aiming at my head?”
“We never make idle threats.”
“Nothing wrong with a little idleness. Especially in the threat department. Too many people are in a hurry to hurt other people. That’s the way I look at it. I figure we could all use a little more humanity.”
“I hope that works for you. But it didn’t work for us Jews.”
The waiter came back with the drinks and she took hers like it was nothing stronger than an infusion of tea. I sipped mine more carefully; the demon drink was best handled with care when you were drinking with a genuine demon, albeit one who was currently behaving herself very well.
“By the way, have you a name now? Or is that still not important?”
“Rahel Eskenazi.”
“Is that true?”
“Mostly.”
“But I’m right in thinking you are from the Ha’Mossad.”
“We prefer to call it the Institute. Or just Glilot. It’s more discreet.”
“As an insurance man I can certainly see the sense of that. Why take risks if you don’t have to?”
The bandit queen looked up at the ceiling and nodded. “I always liked this hotel,” she said quietly. “The German insurance business must be good if they can afford to put you up here. In what was Göring’s favorite hotel. He knew a thing or two about luxury.”
“It doesn’t spoil it for you? Knowing that?”
“Knowing what happened to Göring, no, not at all. In fact, it makes me like the place all the more. It reminds me of how quickly a moral order can be restored. More or less. I like to think of Göring in his suite upstairs quite unaware that in the next room Nemesis awaits her chance to enact retribution against those like him who succumb to hubris. Yes, that’s what I think.” She smiled wryly. “I also think a man like you is wasted in the world of insurance.”
“I get paid sufficient to drive a car, eat sausage, and drink enough beer to be drunk once a week, not necessarily in that order. In Germany we call that making a living.”
“There are not many insurance men who carry a gun.”
“They might sell a few more policies if they did.”
“A living, perhaps. But not a life. Not for you, Christof.”
I shrugged and let that one go. I figured if she was driving at something she’d pull up and let me take a peek at what was on the front seat, eventually.
“I hear you have your passport back,” she said. “And that you’re leaving Athens today.”
“That’s right. I was on my way out to visit the Acropolis when I saw you. All these weeks I’ve been here and I still haven’t been up to take a look at the thing. I hear it’s seen better days but that it’s worth a look.”
“You can see it another time. It will still be there in a thousand years.”
“Yes, but I’m not so sure I will.”
“I also hear that Max Merten has been arrested by the Greek police.”
“Not arrested. Not quite yet. But his passport has been taken away. And they’ve got him in a safe house in Glyfada. They’ll arrest him only after he starts to give evidence in Arthur Meissner’s trial. That’s the deal I made for him. Makes him look a bit better.”
“In Greece? I doubt that. But it makes you feel a bit better, and that’s important, too, right?”
“Also right.” I shrugged. “I’m only sorry I couldn’t deliver up Alois Brunner for you.”
“We’ll get him one day.”
“I hope so.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Sure. A man like Brunner gives all Germans a bad name. And who better than Germans to help find him? I can’t say I agree with Adenauer’s policy on this matter very much. I think it will come back to haunt us. That’s one of the reasons I persuaded Merten to give himself up to the Greeks.”
“We’d have hanged him for sure.”
“That’s the other reason.”
FIFTY-FIVE
–
“It won’t stick, you know,” said the bandit queen. “The charges against Max Merten. Not in a Greek court. Not for long, anyway.”
“I don’t see why. There must be plenty of witnesses still alive. People from Salonika, victims of genocide, men and women who came back from the camps, who’ll testify against him. Surely the Nazis didn’t kill all of them.”
“You’re so naïve. This has
