I hold the trigger in until the firing pin clicks, change the magazine and fire off another volley as I approach the vehicle. The driver collapses over the horn.
I dump the StG in a garden and shout:
‘HELP! Partisans!’
The horn blares.
_ _ _
In the car.
I take in the shredded remains of a uniform, purple epaulettes and gold braid – Grünfeldt’s arm is broken, his head buried in the back seat. Haber is in seizure. I take hold of his collar and haul him away from the horn, and then everything is quiet. Frezl has been slung halfway out of the vehicle, his arm is draped across Kindler’s gut. I stroke a finger over his cheek, close his eyes, close his mouth.
His last breath against my hand.
A fair-haired boy.
Only now do I realise that I have killed Kommissar Kube’s men.
The first of the Wehrmacht come running, braces dangling, Mausers cocked at the ready, a clamour of voices.
‘Police,’ I say. ‘I’ll get help.’
My watch says eleven minutes to f ive as I duck back into the alley to pick up my bag.
Eleven minutes until my train.
The train
I can see the train as it comes in across the great shunting yards.
Kube’s men.
When Kube finds out he will kill me …
Severe searchlights beam out from the engine sheds, the doors open with a clatter, and troops spill onto the ramp. In front of me a sandy pathway opens up through the darkness, a luminous track.
A woman turns onto the path a few metres further on, she comes straight at me, her face a veil of smoke, swirling smoke in the grey darkness.
She staggers, veers off to the right, clutches her throat, and falls towards me.
‘Masja!’ I shout.
I catch her. Masja’s hands are around my neck, the taste of blood in my mouth.
‘Masja!’
A tall, thin man steps onto the path.
‘Should we stop the bleeding?’ he says calmly.
‘What?’
‘She’ll die in your arms. Do you want her to die?’
‘Do something, for Chrissake!’
‘Where are you going?’
The thin man grips Masja firmly in his hands and lays her down. Someone else steps from the bushes, inserts his fingers into the wound in Masja’s neck and applies a tourniquet. He is shorter, stockier than the first man.
I have seen him before. Who is he?
‘Who are you?’
‘I asked you where you were going,’ says the thin one.
‘Should I let go?’ the stocky one asks.
‘No!’ I shout. ‘Hamburg!’
‘Hamburg?’
‘Yes. Strehling is in Hamburg!’
‘Thank you.’
Dirlewanger’s deathly face emerges from the darkness. He places his tongue against his upper lip, spits out some shreds of tobacco. He walks up to Masja with a pistol in his hand.
‘Are you fucking her?’
‘What? No, for God’s sake!’
He empties the P38 into her face. Blood splatters his hands.
The stocky one, crouching at her side, releases the tourniquet and gets to his feet.
‘Oscar!’ he says. ‘I’m drenched.’
‘You said you weren’t fucking her,’ says Dirlewanger.
‘What?’
‘We’re coming with you,’ he says, and offers me a handkerchief. ‘Here. You’re covered in blood.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I say.
He stands there, holding the handkerchief in the air.
_ _ _
The stocky one has his fingers in my mouth, he is trying to tear off my head. Dirlewanger kicks me in the stomach, I try to bite into his fingers, they’re gagging me, and I am dealt a blow to the forehead.
‘I can’t hear what he’s saying … let go, Klaus …’
I sit up, spitting earth from between my lips.
‘What is it you want? Did Kube send you?’
They laugh.
‘No, you shot them, remember? Kindler, as well. Rather well thought out, for a nobody,’ says Dirlewanger. ‘Quite spectacular, in fact.’
‘Manfred will be coming to get you. He’ll …’
‘We’ll deal with Manfred.’
‘Michael and Hans … the Schwabenland brothers …’
‘Hush …’ says Dirlewanger, index finger to his lips. ‘Don’t tell anyone …’
The thin one laughs.
‘… or else they might come after us.’
Now Dirlewanger laughs too, laughs as he rips off my rank insignia with his penknife.
‘She tasted rather nice, by the way, even if she was oblivious …’
‘Who?’
‘Your little telegraphist cunt …’
_ _ _
Dirlewanger’s mouldy face as he raises his hand and the train sets in motion.
I sit in the murky carriage with my hands folded around my knees, handcuffed. Dirlewanger’s men guard me – the stocky one with his fat legs dangling out of the door. He rifles through my wallet. Klaus.
‘Tossing off to Zarah Leander, are we?’ he says when he sees the photograph of Eline.
The other man says nothing, two green cat’s eyes in the dim light.
‘And what have we got here?’
He unfolds the reply from my colleague in Hamburg.
‘A code?’
I stare back at Dirlewanger as the train pulls away: he dwindles to a speck and is gone.
‘No,’ I say.
‘We’ll find out, don’t you worry,’ says Klaus.
‘It makes no difference,’ says the thin one. ‘What we want to know is inside his head. If he won’t talk, we’ll cut it off.’
Klaus stuffs my wallet into his pocket.
I remember him now.
The man from Dirlewanger’s zoo.
I never did report him for Rassenschande.
The Jew lover with the whip.
_ _ _
The tall, thin one with the sallow skin is called Rainer. He shovels stew into his face straight from the primus. He has opened the little aluminium spoon from the cutlery set and holds it at the join, his meagre mouth tight as he attacks the food.
We hold back as the troop trains slowly clatter by.
A company of the Wehrmacht clambers in at Navahrudak.
Klaus has been out in the shunting yards looking for booze.
He lifts a leg sideways into the wagon and hauls himself inside.
‘I got the biscuits you were wanting.’
Rainer says
