In the coin compartment of Rainer’s wallet I find a small handwritten note. Peter 0134, Hamburg. The puerile flourish of the hand. Is Dirlewanger dyslexic? This is an internal number, SD. Sicherheitsdienst. Dirlewanger must have given it to them before he sent us off. Peter must be their contact. What will he do when they fail to call him and report?
Who is at the other end besides Dirlewanger? Kube, Gottberg, Bach-Zelewski? The entire SS?
Can Manfred get me out of this?
I unfold the telegram Greta gave me, from my old friend in the Kripo in Hamburg, homicide department. The coded message was in Klaus’s wallet, a garble of nonsense. I find the page from my code book, a taper pinned behind my collar, unroll it, lie down on my stomach and spell my way through:
No trace of M. Schlosser. Man B. Winther found dead today, 24 June. Signs of torture. ID B.W. stores manager STREHLING G.M.B.H. engineering works. Address Peute Hafen 4-8. No admittance. Belongs SS. Can get no further. Live well. Hugo.
The 24th of June was two days ago.
Answer: Strehling is not a man, but a company. Not a who, but a what.
Manfred went directly after this B. Winther, tortured and killed him, and left him somewhere to be found. This was not Koreletjy or the death zone, but Hamburg. Germany. Perhaps he is counting on Kripo panicking once they realise the SS is involved. Even so, he is running a risk. And if a stash of gold vanishes from an internal store it will be found out. You can fill your pockets in the occupied territories, but get it back to Germany and everything will be itemised and registered like it had never been anything but ours. Unless the gold wasn’t registered, and Manfred knew that.
I pinch an Efka between my fingers and flick it into the gravel pit.
The time is just after two.
It is all beginning to come together.
You do not kill a man in Hamburg because a partisan spills a name under torture to save his skin. Manfred must have known Steiner had the gold. And why? Because the two of them knocked it off together! He taught me everything, Manfred said. When he threw the ring in the river it was no gesture to me, he knew there was much more where that came from.
Goga said: Steiner had the gold hidden. He told me to get it out of him.
Manfred did not go to Hamburg to unravel some plot.
He is the plot.
I don’t want to carry the thought through to its logical conclusion.
I must get the gold.
Taken from the teeth of Jews. Prised up by tongs, dissolved by acid, melted into bars.
Pecunia non olet. Maybe I can buy myself free? Maybe I can survive this after all.
My stomach is in knots.
What will Manfred do if I find him?
If I find him, he will kill me.
Eline. Why am I thinking about her now? Is she involved in this?
She is pure. She has to be pure.
When I return, the train is already in motion. They see me running, the shouting bodies inside the carriage, and a forest of arms extends from the open door of the wagon. I grab one and am pulled inside.
_ _ _
Tuesday, 27 July
Hamburg is nothing but smoke. We see it even as we approach the city from the north, late in the evening, a thick, black pulse of explosions, a veil of gases and particles drifting towards the Elbe, towards the sea. It is no longer a city. It is the earth on fire.
A railway worker.
We call out, he turns, lowers his shovel, cups his hand behind his ear.
‘What?’
‘Is Wandsbek hit?’
‘Is Hamm?’
‘St Pauli?’
‘Altona?’
‘What?’
We yell, a single larynx, and he draws a dark, calloused hand across his mouth.
‘No,’ he shouts as we pass. ‘It’s …’
‘What did he say?’
‘The docks,’ someone says.
‘It must be Howaldtswerke.’
‘It’s Howaldtswerke.’
‘It must be. The docks. He said the docks … Surely they wouldn’t bomb …’
‘They would. There’s nothing those bastards wouldn’t bomb …’
‘Look, you can see … it’s coming from the docks, not the city …’
‘You’re imagining things …’
‘No, look!’
We refuse to believe it. We see flakes of ash descend upon us like malicious snow, a leisurely precipitation, like feathers, like paper, a gossamer of burning wool.
_ _ _
The railway lines are intact as we near the centre in the grey rain of ash.
I omit to say goodbye as I jump down from the wagon at the Hauptbahnhof, the smoke and the stench filling my nostrils, panic screaming in my brain; at once there is only Eline. I run, barging my way though the weary faces, the whites of their eyes, colliding head on with a family, my bag ramming a child, Eline, the mother’s suitcase bursts open, clothes, shoes, brushes spill out, why a fur coat in the middle of summer, in this heat, in this oppressive heat, Hamburg has never been so unbearably hot, I nod and smile my apologies, a tornado, a typhoon, an earthquake, white inside my brain, Eline, I tumble out onto Steintordamm: thick banks of smoke; black, shimmering mountains tearing at the lungs; firefighters battling; throngs of soldiers and children; Eline; I run towards the water, follow the railway east, seeing nothing, running, running, Nordkanal, Eiffestrasse, I reach the Mittelkanal, the low bushes, the gravel paths, the lazy water.
I stop, hands on my knees.
My breath, a tentacled mass heaving from my lungs.
I am in Hamm.
I look around. Benches. A stretch of bushes and trees. Apartment buildings beyond, wrought-iron balconies facing north. The docklands. The tenements to the south, their
