The Knife-Edge Path Read online

  Stumpff paused a moment, chuckling. “He just gave me a piece of his mind, too. Hell, I wasn’t going to argue with him. You saw it. Spoiling for a fight. This Helsinki situation’s got him tearing his hair out. Plus I don’t think he ever forgave you for how you dealt with Baab. Flouting the laws of the Teutonia, for Christ’s sake! So your report from Helsinki was late. No big deal, but suddenly it’s all news to him – your standing in the Party. I didn’t appreciate it, when it was me who set you on the path to where you are today. Where’s the respect?” Stumpff puffed nervously on his cigarette.

  Langsdorff took a long pull on his own, flipped it out into the dead flower bed behind the walk. “The reason I went to Bornichen the way I did, sir, was that I knew Fritsch wouldn’t let me if I’d asked permission.”

  “Of course! Right on the money, Kurt. He’s spit and polish all the way. Still, in the future, better do things by the book.”

  “To tell the truth, I wish my wife had been there.”

  “Yes, but then you’d have a problem, wouldn’t you? You couldn’t lie about it.” Stumpff took a step toward him, reached for his arm but fell short of touching it. “Give Fritsch a day or two, he’ll cool off. So Mannerheim wins one. It’s no skin off our teeth. How many Jews slipped through our fingers? A lousy handful. We’ll make it up. If I were you I’d get that report on his desk tonight.”

  Langsdorff smiled at the cold protruding eyes bathed in benevolence, in which sincerity made almost likeable the man he knew he should hate.

  Stumpff dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. “Goodbye, Kurt. You keep your chin up, now.”

  “Goodbye, sir.” Langsdorff was careful not to squeeze the plump, gloved hand too hard.

  He watched until Stumpff disappeared around the corner onto the walkway to the street, then leaned back, lit another cigarette and took a long, deep drag.

  She was there in the clearing smoke. French, they say, as if he’d hired her to hold his hand until the shovels gagged Frau Hintz forever. He could feel her body down along the length of his, that moment he had loved her, trampling on Elfriede.

  She lay asleep beside him, and he looked at her, a child almost, the curly wisps of golden hair that fringed her temples and her forehead. He remembered the narcotic of her closeness to him as she stroked his face and ran her hand through his hair and then began to kiss him, and her body burned life into the years of his strength propped in a vain and rotting fastness, and he saw no conquest sleeping with her, no sin drawn from him; it was as if the spasm of life burst on the crypt in his soul and the dead, for just that instant, stopped shuffling through. Yet he felt the unfurling of those years now suddenly emptied into a violent encounter with what seemed hardly more than an apology of love, an announcement of its presence commanded elsewhere. She had done him a kindness, but it was just the relief that pierced his conscience, and peace eluded him again. A sound shook through the sudden selfishness of their repose. The hum of bombers far away, trombone notes held in menacing harmony, on their way to the munition dumps, the oil fields and the bridges. A darker, slighter body flopped to the frozen ground in his mind. He wondered why he so recklessly wanted Simone to know. Why he wanted a margin of shame to surround her Frankish advantages that spared her from the gas chambers. He didn’t know what good there was in goodness, if only he profited. If God could blame him for continuing to fail, why then didn’t He in His infinite power intercede? If Kurt Langsdorff, in his littleness, was to blame, how did God in his immensity get off? Simone had whispered, ‘There, there, I’m here.’ But she could no more deny the futility struggling for his soul than a sense of laurels could recover the feeling he longed for. He could see it marching on him now, that such understanding as he had craved from her would capture him, and he would be down to only a confession, his last few shots. But hadn’t he meant, all along, to keep one of the bullets for himself?

  15

  Obermeyer pulled over along the curb and stopped.

  In the back seat Stumpff reached for the door handle that gleamed faintly as the overhead light came on and the door swung open. “Don’t bother getting out, Obermeyer.”

  Obermeyer hadn’t tried. He sat there staring straight ahead out at the darkened street.

  “Come back for me a little later in the morning. Say ten.”

  The motor idled softly, rocking Obermeyer slightly. He roused himself, turning his head. “I’m sorry, sir -?”

  “I said pick me up tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, not eight as usual.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be here.”

  Stumpff grunted as he swung his other leg around. At the edge of the seat he stopped scooting out. “What’s the matter with you, Obermeyer? Your mother still down with the vapors?”

  “Oh no, sir. She’s feeling better. No troubles there.” Then Obermeyer went back to looking through the windshield into the darkness glowing faintly with the sweep of searchlights overhead.

  Stumpff got out laboriously. From the curb he leaned in, clutching the open door. “Don’t forget now, come for me at ten o’clock sharp. Got that straight?”

  Obermeyer said nothing. His hands were on the wheel. Exhaust fumes drifted up over the top of the car.

  Stumpff thought he’d seen him faintly nod. Promises with that man meant very little, anyway. God only knew what route obedience took through that thick skull. He gave the door a shove. “All right, Obermeyer. Goodnight, then.”

  The door slammed behind him as he started for the iron gate. He trudged up the stairs. Something seemed vaguely amiss in the corridor as he passed a few doors, some of them ajar. Well, that was their business. As he was turning for the next flight up he glanced at 211, saw no light under Frau Straub’s door. Asleep, he thought. Leave her be until morning. He kicked something that clattered across the landing. He went over and stooped to pick up the fountain pen that looked expensive. He thought about saving it to ask around. No, the alabaster finish must be imitation. The other things that looked like refuse scattered around were just as worthless, a scuffed and wrinkled pair of shoes outside a door. He was too tired to care, and tossed the pen under the stairwell. Going upward now, his legs felt heavy, clumping step by step. He was panting by the time he reached the top.

  He came into his cold and darkened flat, threaded his way through the kitchen to his chair and turned on the lamp. Strands of Trude’s hair flew into the light as he sat on his coattails. He looked across into the half-dark where Hanne had so often got his dinner. There was no Hanne now. No cat. The cream in the icebox had gone sour. She hadn’t left the steam heater on. Selfish bitch, he thought.

  A wave of hatred came up into his heart like nausea, a wave of hating her for being gone. He got up and trudged to the cupboard and took down the cognac bottle and a snifter, carried them over to the table and sat in the sturdiest chair he’d designated as his own. He felt a presence lurking in the stillness of the hollow where she’d been, and twisted around as if a hand had touched him uninvited. He thought he heard her giggling back there in the bedroom: Surprise! I’m staying, Willy! Now take off that coat and let me warm you up! In the darkened doorway, through which he could make out the bedstead, green eyes glowed on their haunches: the ghost of Trude left behind to get her share of pilfered sausage. He choked back a laugh and, reaching for the bottle, poured up to the brim, raised the glass and the cognac went down burning.

  He’d never had Frau Straub up here, naturally, while Hanne was in the way. In his mind he saw that woman’s cat-eyes fluttering, lips pouting, the way she moved that brushed him with desire. All she’d wanted was a little dance that night. But no, he had to wince and whine, ‘It just isn’t me!’

  He grabbed his glass and slurped down another swallow of the tasty VVSOP, then slammed it back down the table. She was all right, he thought. He wasn’t worried. The only thing…

  In his mind Fritsch said, ‘I’ll want a word.’ He wished he’d had the guts to say, ‘If I appear to be too friendly with Lieutenant Langsdorff, that’s
because I am. Take it or leave it.’ He smiled as he saw himself raising a slack salute, muttering ‘Heil Hitler,’ then striding to the door and summarily going out. He spluttered with a laugh that broke into a cough. He washed it down with another slurp of cognac. Everybody knew he was a man. Just ask Hanne. And her, the stronger one. Those times she’d stood there in her nightie in the doorway, sleepy-eyed, bare legged. A woman with experience.

  His mind began to roll like a heavy, unrelenting sea. A voice came to him from long ago when he had saved that boy from rotting in a prison cell forever, knowing he could make him almost from the bottom up like one of Arno Breker’s sculptures. From the wet clay of the Church to the sentinel at the Ordensburg Vogelsang. It didn’t seem to fit – that jarring unexpected air of hardness about him, some almost ruthless undertone. Nothing like the desperate man of God he’d known in those strangely happier times. Those days when…

  Was Fritsch guessing, or did he know? He could see Frau Straub at the gravesite, looking every bit like she belonged there by Kurt’s side. Who was she? People would wonder. Kurt’s cousin from Provence? She’d beat a pastor’s daughter any day. But then if she had been there, Kurt had lied. Kurt’s wife was a decoy. The only other women in the picture…

  There was a tapping at the door.

  A timid voice passed through it like a ghost. “I beg your pardon, sir – it’s me, Corporal Obermeyer.”

  “Christ almighty!” Stumpff growled. He lurched up onto shaky legs, suddenly felt lightheaded and stood there for a moment waiting it out, then reeled toward the door and jerked it open.

  Obermeyer stood there, wide-eyed.

  “What is it, Obermeyer? Why haven’t you gone home?”

  Obermeyer’s eyes were open wide enough to load with shotgun shells. He pulled off his cap and kneaded it like bread dough. “Forgive me, sir. I should have spoken up in the car, but - it’s about Frau Straub. The orders you left with me about her.”

  Stumpff blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your orders, sir, for me to keep an eye on her, and what to do if she refused to ride with me.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Obermeyer, it’s getting on toward midnight.”

  Obermeyer kneaded his cap some more. “Yes, sir, I know. The thing is, I forgot to tell you earlier. It was on my mind, but you see, she did refuse to ride with me, for no good reason. So I got to wondering and I followed her, according to your orders. Now I can report to you which I forgot to do downstairs.”

  “Did I leave you with any orders to follow her?”

  “You did say keep an eye on her, sir, which I couldn’t do unless I followed her, and would be disobeying orders if I didn’t.”

  Stumpff vaguely felt a sort of animal intelligence barking at him like a dog expecting him to understand. His eyes fell upon the gun strapped to Obermeyer’s side. “What are you doing with that gun?”

  Obermeyer raised his arms to peer under one elbow. “I’ve had it on all day, sir. It’s mine.”

  “I told you once you don’t need to be carrying a gun around.”

  “Yes, sir. It’s been in the glove box for some time.”

  “But now you’ve got it on.”

  “Well, you know how things are getting anxious in the city, all the commotion and the talk of where the Russians are, people packing up and -”

  “Rumors, Obermeyer. I hope you’re not intending to shoot somebody with that thing.”

  Obermeyer didn’t smile. “Well, if I had to, sir -”

  Stumpff looked at the stubborn glaze drawn across Obermeyer’s eyes as if the gun had made him smarter. “All right, Obermeyer, what’s all this business about Frau Straub?”

  Obermeyer shifted his feet around, looked up through a canny squint. “Has she spoken to you, sir, about the way she treated me?”

  “You know as well as I do that I’ve had no chance to speak to her.”

  Obermeyer’s body slumped with a sigh. “I don’t believe you’re going to like this, sir. She didn’t state it, but there was a reason why she wouldn’t let me drive her anywhere in comfort.”

  “Why shouldn’t I like it?”

  “Foreigners, sir.” Obermeyer made a shuffling movement, chugging his arms as if to plant himself for some defensive maneuver.

  “Now you’ve completely lost me, Obermeyer.”

  “Yes, but if I hadn’t seen them coming out of the tenement while she stayed in there, perhaps I wouldn’t have followed them clear out to St. Anne’s Church.”

  “Followed whom from where?”

  “The foreigners from the tenement on Bulowstrasse, to which I could have given her a ride, but then it came to me why she refused. As soon as I set eyes on these two men I knew that’s what they were, and I had to ask myself, what business did they have walking all the way to church that late at night, when all the services were over and the doors locked up tight?”

  “Let me get this straight. You followed a couple of men from Bulowstrasse to St. Anne’s because they looked to you like foreigners?”

  Obermeyer was already nodding. “That’s right, sir. Furthermore, that pastor at St. Anne’s, Mochalsky – my mother’s got nothing good to say about him, man of God or no. The rumors are that he’s a foreign agent. She put her foot down on attending any of his services anymore. Not only her. Before long he’ll be preaching to empty pews.”

  “But Obermeyer, you’re telling me these foreigners, as you call them, came out of the tenement where Frau Straub had gone in. How could you know which flat they visited, if any, if you stayed out in the car, unless you didn’t?”

  Obermeyer began to shake his head. “To me there was as good a chance as any that Frau Straub was in the flat that they had just come out of.”

  “How do you figure? Chance covers quite a lot of territory, Obermeyer.”

  “But I’ve got an eye for foreigners, sir, thanks to my mother. She taught me.” Obermeyer brightened. “So aren’t you glad I followed them, sir?”

  Stumpff stepped back, pulling the door with him. “Get in here, Obermeyer.”

  He obeyed, nodding like a horse being led in at a canter. Stumpff shut the door, took Obermeyer’s arm and hustled him a few more steps into the room. “Now Obermeyer, it’s fair to say that you were upset by the way Frau Straub treated you. But let’s get down to brass tacks. Could you be trying to frame her because she slighted you?”

  A tic started to jitter in Obermeyer’s left eye. “Lie to you, sir? Goodness, no.”

  “Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll have a word her, then we can clear the whole thing up.”

  Obermeyer’s face flattened back as if he’d been hit by a shovel. “But I can get the proof, sir!”

  Stumpff began to shake his head. Something made him want to laugh. “I’ve had a very long day, Corporal, and I’m tired. Run along, now. Get some sleep. You’re dismissed.”

  Obermeyer hung his head, fitted on his rumpled cap and dragged a step back toward the door. Stumpff yanked it open, Obermeyer plodded through. Stumpff watched him for a moment shuffling slowly down the corridor toward the stairway, then shut the door and started back for his chair, feeling drained of all desire for another drink. It looked more like a dose of medicine for his nerves. Nerves writhing around like hydras, snapping at what wasn’t there. Obermeyer seeing goblins in a couple of men his mother would pick out of a lineup blindfolded. And yet…

  He tore back his cuff, read 11:49 on his watch. Past her bedtime, but she hadn’t reported to him yet. She must be down there now. No, he couldn’t. He was too drunk. He trudged back across the room, sank into the hard chair, making it clatter, and began to wonder now if he had cooked his own goose, sticking up for Kurt. He looked up at the picture of the Führer on the wall where he wished there was a window to look out of. A window Hanne used to grouse about, ‘No sunlight ever, Willy? Why did you ever take this flat? With just a few more Reichsmarks -’

  He suddenly sat up rigidly, pushed off the table to his feet and hurried to the door,
opened it and saw that Obermeyer was halfway down the corridor trotting like a pickpocket whose hands had been too light for him to feel. He thundered, “Obermeyer! Come back here!”

  Obermeyer stopped so suddenly his back lurched forward, then he spun around and took long stumping strides until he pulled up in front of Stumpff’s upheld hand.

  “About that gun, Obermeyer?”

  “Yes, sir? I know. I’ll return it to the glove box.”

  “No. I want you to keep it on.”

  “On, sir?”

  “Just in case. Those things you said about the foreigners –of course they could be harmless. But, do you know how to use that thing?”

  “Oh, in training, sir, they said I was quite some shot!”

  “Mmm. I’d like you to keep up with your surveillance for a few more nights.”

  “Surveillance of -?”

  “Frau Straub’s movements, of course. But keep an eye out for those foreigners, too. I don’t have to tell you not to use the gun unless you absolutely have to. Show restraint.”

  “Are you serious, sir?”

  “Well, of course I am. You’re going to have to keep late hours.”

  “I’ve always been a night owl, sir.”

  “Be a man and keep a level head. No lynching command is going to chase you down and corner you in somebody’s woodshed.”

  “Not on your life, sir!”

  “And whatever you do, don’t fall asleep in the car.”

  Obermeyer looked down at his gun, caressing the holster. “No chance of it, sir.”

  “All right, then. Off with you. Come back for me tomorrow morning, ten o’clock on the dot.”

  Obermeyer saluted. He turned around and marched through the door and out into the corridor on thudding heels.

  Behind the closed door Stumpff let out a sigh. He walked back to the table and lowered himself slowly into his chair, looking at the empty snifter. Another drink? Yes, that might do it. He reached for the bottle, then thought better of it. Fortify yourself and wind up acting like a fool? Where could she go in the middle of the night? Could she be holding out on him? No, she wouldn’t dare. Just who was the fool around here, anyway?