‘Go on.’
‘As far as I’m informed, Steiner was head of Einsatzkommando B …’
‘That’s classified, as you should know …’
‘Indeed, but I thought that if I could see the march route for autumn ’41 and spring ’42, our perpetrator could be a survivor from one of the operations …’
‘The map only?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s SD …’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. It was foolish of me.’
‘Very foolish. In fact, I think you have misunderstood the whole matter …’
‘I beg your pardon?’
He folds his hands again; they look soft and delicate.
‘The crux of the matter is this: Have you found out what Steiner was doing in Lida?’
‘No.’
‘He was supposed to be in Kursk on the 2nd together with his division. So what was he doing with his wife in a private car five hundred kilometres away?’
‘I don’t know the answer to that. All I know is that Hauptsturmführer Schlosser was expecting him.’
‘I see. How do you mean, expecting him?’
‘Well, there was a big reception planned. I don’t understand—’
‘No, you don’t. But you will. And when you come up with your answer you report to me.’
‘But Hauptsturmführer Schlosser …’
‘Understood?’
‘Yes, Herr Generalkommissar. Understood.’
‘Now, you’ve got two days for your Jewish lead.’
_ _ _
They let him design the uniform himself, Grünfeldt tells me in the car on the way to NKVD’s old prison and camp archives, Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, GULag. He flutters his glossy white calfskin gloves. He looks like an idiot; the pheasant feathers, gold braid and sparkling buttons, his perfect nails. Are they varnished? On arrival I see this building too has been turned into a cinema for the Wehrmacht on leave from the front. NKVD set fire to the place in July of ’41 when they moved out, but they had fireproofed the archive boxes in the basement themselves. If my theory is correct, we are looking for a local Jew dispatched to the Gulag for bourgeois pederasty, Article 121 of the Soviet Criminal Code, then returned to the partisan throng. In which case he must be here, inside NKVD’s bureaucratic brain.
‘They killed them all,’ says Haber, running a long finger across his moustache after we have found an office and an assistant has provided us with the records.
‘Who?’ I ask.
‘The inmates,’ Grünfeldt says. ‘They tossed hand grenades into the cells.’
‘What are we looking for?’ Haber asks, and yawns.
‘A Jew, I think. Probably convicted of homosexual activity.’
‘I see,’ says Grünfeldt. ‘Have we got a name?’
‘No. We have nothing. Or rather …’
I pull out my wallet, remove Etke’s drawing from the note section, and unfold it on the table. The cockerel and the two eyes.
‘Ah,’ says Haber. ‘A rebus?’
‘You could say. Prison tattoos.’
‘Let’s get started,’ Haber says, and takes out the first bundle of documents.
_ _ _
Later, the same evening. Haber is perspiring. He drinks buttermilk from a large glass jug. The Hiwi, Semjon, translates. Grünfeldt takes notes. He smokes Semjon’s mahorkas. They drink vodka.
My head is swimming.
We have found sixty-three candidates: Jews convicted of homosexuality.
‘Here’s another,’ says Grünfeldt. ‘What does it say, Ivan Abramovitj Henker, born 1899. Member of the Communist Party 1919. Convicted of Trotskyist conspiracy in ’36. There’s an addendum about Article 121 … No, he was shot.’
‘Next,’ says Haber. He clicks his tongue, a semicircle of milk on his upper lip.
‘Christ,’ says Grünfeldt. He gets to his feet and lifts his arms above his head, stretches his fingers, rolls his neck. ‘I could do with some pussy …’
‘That’s enough,’ I say.
‘But I could,’ says Grünfeldt.
‘Have some buttermilk,’ says Haber.
_ _ _
Later still. Grünfeldt is bored and fidgety. At one point he goes outside to stretch his legs, but Haber brings him back. After some heated words of reproval in the corridor, Grünfeldt comes back in and sits down.
The sky is light, though it is past 2 a.m. The town itself is dark and brooding; burnt-out buildings, blacked-out windows.
Haber stands with his hands clasped behind his back, looking out of the window. Semjon translates the dossiers for me, and I make notes.
‘Semjon, do you think we’re going to win?’ Grünfeldt says all of a sudden.
His long legs are stretched out in front of him, feet on the table. We are down to eighty-seven candidates, but many of the archive boxes have yet to be opened.
‘Gospodin?’
‘Do you think we’ll win Kursk? Do you think we’ll break through?’
‘I am only Semjon, gospodin. I know nothing.’
‘An ignorant Belorussian, is that it?’
‘Yes, gospodin. But I know one thing.’
‘And what’s that?’ Haber asks from over by the window.
‘No one is ever released from Gulag. So there is only one possibility. The man we are looking for was part of a penal unit.’
‘A penal unit?’ Grünfeldt says.
‘Yes, released from Vorkuta to serve in a penal unit.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ I ask.
‘That we try the camps. Maybe someone there fought alongside him … Or maybe the Hiwis. There are many Russian prisoners of war among us.’
‘Jews as well?’ Haber asks.
‘No.’
‘And you know that?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’ Haber persists.
‘I just know.’
‘I see,’ says Haber.
He produces a cigar from a pocket of his jacket, bites off the end, and strikes a match on the windowsill.
‘How might that be, exactly?’
‘They cannot say r or schji …’
‘Sji?’
‘Yes, schji … and besides, they have this …’
‘This what?’
‘Well … Jewishness.’
Grünfeldt takes his feet off the table and the heels of his boots clack against the floor. He unscrews the cork from the vodka.
‘Ah!’ he says, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. ‘Interesting! Now, the Cabaret Moderne in Berlin. No, Haber, don’t look at me like that! I was trying to become an actor, you know perfectly well! It didn’t turn out terribly well. But I did write some sketches! Rather good ones at that, if I may say …’
He proceeds to hum a tune.
‘“Kleiner Max”! Don’t you know it? Well, it got them going, I can tell you, you should have seen
