I am standing in Peute Hafen.
_ _ _
The heat is unbearable here as I wander through the docks.
I pull my handkerchief from my pocket once again and cover my mouth.
The coal heaps are burning.
STREHLING GmbH is a cathedral in cast iron and rubble.
The heat has been so intense the great hall has melted, its structure buckled.
I find my crumpled packet of Efkas, tip it on its head. Two cigarettes drop into my hand. I tuck one into my breast pocket and light the other.
I unbutton the flap of my holster as I enter the building.
‘Anyone here? Hello …?’
No answer. Everything here is dead.
I stand open-mouthed, staring at the glazed surroundings, looking up through a roof that has dissolved ten metres above me, into disorderly stalactites of purple glass.
Boilers, piping, exploded into scrap. Lingering heat. I kick through the debris. In the midst of it all is a locked safe, untarnished and sublime. Krupp steel. I clamber and scrabble, an imbecile in search of a key. I gash my hand. The filthy, blistered skin of my hands. I return to the safe, brace my legs and wrench the handle in vain.
I stare down the length of the factory floor. At the far end is a car, crashed into the end wall, a convertible.
When I get closer I see that only the steel body remains intact, the windows and everything perishable are gone. Inside this singular meteorite, it too purple, are the remains of a human being, motor car and corpse amalgamated, the skeleton a loose collection of charcoal sticks encased in a brittle glass of slag and variegated dross, rubber and shards of something that glitters.
I gasp as I realise I have found the gold.
I come back with an iron bar I find lying around. I tear my undershirt into pieces and wind the material around my hands.
_ _ _
Reconstruction: Manfred must have thought he had time to get out with the ingots. He had the engine running, but something sent him off into the wall. If the building took a direct hit, a thousand-pound bomb would have brought the roof down on him.
On top of his head, in his open car.
He loved convertibles.
Only after that, when the incendiaries came through the gaping hole above, did the car burst into flame. First the leather seats and upholstery, his clothes. Then the rubber tyres. His skin withered, the fat of his body began to boil, his muscles to burn, the petrol in the tank exploded, and everything after that must have gone so quickly – the wood of the dashboard, the bakelite and the glass, the suspension and the soft metal – and then, when the temperature reached 1063 degrees Celsius, the ingots became liquid and swam into it all.
_ _ _
I climb into the wreck through the open roof and begin hurling away the rubble, hacking and digging with the iron bar, a heap of stone and soot and small, grubby lumps of gold, my fingers bleeding, another gash in my hand, I am sweating profusely, amid this fat sheen of gold and filth, the stench of rubber, sulphur and death. I scrabble away until the bones are laid bare, femur, radius, the shattered socket of a hip, a rib that crumbles in my hand. My fingers follow the spine, and at the front of the vehicle, below the place where the steering wheel would have been, the gold finally came to a halt.
I have found Manfred’s head.
The vertebrae of the neck break away as I struggle with it. Eventually it comes free and I am left holding a shapeless bulk some five or six kilos in weight, a blackened stump of bone protruding from one side, and when I turn it over a piece of the frontal bone lodged in the metal’s flat underside. Only the uppermost part of the eyebrow ridge is visible. In the middle, approximately where the mouth should be, a length of metal juts out. It looks like part of the brake pedal.
The stench is foul. I pull on the metal protuberance, but find it is stuck fast, and the smell worsens.
I sit down, take my handkerchief from my pocket and begin to polish, spitting on the agglomerated lump until it starts to shine.
I hold it up in front of me with two hands and put my ear to it, imagining a grumble from within.
‘Sorry, what was that, Manfred? What? Speak up, I can’t hear you.’
I start to laugh, witlessly, nodding frantically and without a sound.
‘You don’t say! Is this funny, Manfred? Are you having fun in there?’
When I realise I am sobbing, I let go and dump it.
Report
Shortly after, I pick up the head and wrap it up in my coat.
I have to get away, out of the city, I need to hide before they come after me. Kube. Dirlewanger. SS, Gestapo, Wehrmacht. The entire fucking war machine …
I start walking south, away from the docks.
Klaus Maier, Sturmmann, with a skull of gold, survivor of the firestorm.
I memorise my report as I walk.
June 1941: Manfred Schlosser is appointed adjutant to Hubert Steiner, who as head of Einsatzgruppe B wipes out Jews in the wake of Heeresgruppe Mitte. They plunder their victims, seizing anything of marketable value – gems, cash, gold. At some point Steiner breaks the agreement, gets greedy and pulls a fast one, makes off with the spoils and hides them away on the premises of Strehling GmbH, an SS warehouse in Hamburg’s dockland.
Spring/summer 1943: Manfred finds out and wants his share. Or maybe Steiner wants rid of him. Manfred realises
