The Knife-Edge Path Read online

  He looked at Langsdorff’s ashen face beside him, at his shoulders trembling, eyes fixed on the girl. Only natural, he thought like a plunger on revulsion. Pick out the handsome one, for all the good that would do her. Grief could wait till after they were dead, and there was nothing you could do about it anymore.

  “There’s a fetching one,” Wirth bleated. “She fancies you, Langsdorff. Why don’t I pull her out? I could give you, say - half an hour with her?”

  “For God’s sake, Wirth!” Stumpff snapped. “Lieutenant Langsdorff is a married man!” Then realized in horror that that he was not supposed to know.

  Wirth cackled. “If I was married, she could make me wish I wasn’t!”

  Langsdorff stood there stoically erect, saying nothing. The girl now had been pushed on, lost in the crush ahead.

  The dulcet voice of the sergeant standing beside the open tin-plated door droned, “Come along now, everybody. Don’t push. It’s warm inside. You’re going to be disinfected. Remember now, breathe deeply.”

  Men and women pressed against each other in the line with shuffling steps.

  Stumpff couldn’t see the girl anymore. She’d looked at him but passed him by. He wouldn’t make himself remember her. Remembrance claimed too many dead for one to matter. From the numbing enormity of death the trivialities came forth: steam from a waiting train, the grey light rushing frost and dirt, moles and scars at the slow circling of a morning that would return westward, like the train, empty. In his mind he saw Langsdorff on a camp bed with the girl. He heard a pounding on the door when time was up.

  White feet mussed the gravel. The sergeant sometimes reached for a shoulder with a gentle gesture. He stepped in front of a little boy whose mother quickly drew him back by the shoulders.

  “That will be all for now!” The sergeant bellowed. He rammed the door shut, drew the iron bolt. Looking at Wirth, he nodded. “Like a well-run laundry, sir! We’ll have them all brand spanking clean in no time! Heavy on the starch!” The sergeant beamed as he caught sight of the little boy staring wonderingly up at him. He laid his hand on the little bald head and gently patted his cheek. “Just look at where we’ve got ourselves, my boy. Head of the column. You’re the commander of the troops!”

  The little boy stared upward from his big brown eyes. His mother pressed him back under her breasts. Her eyes glistened with hate.

  The sergeant looked again at Wirth, indicating the corner around which Heckenholt sat waiting in the truck.

  Suddenly a pretty, strapping girl bolted from the line and began to claw her way along the wire.

  One of the Ukrainians unfurled his whip and drove her back.

  She slipped and sprawled onto the gravel.

  A man who could have been her father broke from the crush of people, shouting “Ewelina!”

  Wirth drew his pistol.

  Two guards charged in from the yard. The one who got to the man first drove the butt of his rifle into his face. The man staggered backwards with blood pouring from his crushed nose. In the line a teenage boy shook sobs into his hands. An old woman screamed something in Hebrew. The baby in her arms began to cry.

  “Take that girl to D-Barrack!” Wirth bawled. “Tell the hags to put some clothes on her! If that bastard there is still alive, put him back in with the others!”

  Stumpff thought, he wants her for himself, the filthy lout. Then it came to him again, how wrong it all was. What was the use of Heckenholt, if…

  Heckenholt sat waiting in the truck.

  Wirth motioned to him, and Heckenholt reached forward, pressed on the starter and the motor whinnied.

  Stumpff felt a flushing from his brain, all going down to nowhere. He tried to gird himself. He wanted to stop everything, but it was too late. Before he could think he opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  Wirth had been watching him. His face contorted with a deadly scowl. “For Christ’s sake, Stumpff. Pull yourself together.”

  Heckenholt’s boot knocked on the floorboard. The throttle clicked. A smell of diesel fuel laced the breeze. Heckenholt climbed out of the truck. He lifted the bonnet, reached in muttering to himself. He rammed the bonnet shut, climbed back up into the cab.

  Wirth said, “Don’t worry, gentlemen. Heckenholt’s the best spare part we’ve ever had,” and he roared laughing as the sound of weeping broke out in the building.

  Stumpff gulped down a wave of nausea, brought his chin up sharply feeling the lumpy skin stretch out of his collar.

  There was a movement to his left. In Langsdorff’s hand a stopwatch ticked.

  “What are you doing, Kurt?”

  “For your report, sir,” Langsdorff said. His voice was thick and tremulous, squeezed off by some encroaching gag.

  Suddenly the truck fired up. The motor coughed a few times, then Heckenholt goosed it to a steady, throbbing roar.

  From the fainter sounds of weeping in the gas chamber a piercing shriek arose. A man wandered from the other naked people waiting in the cold. He held out trembling hands in a supplicating gesture. “Will no one give us water to wash the dead?”

  A guard shoved the man stumbling back into line. “Stop babbling about the dead! Nobody’s dead!”

  Stumpff felt himself reeling. His mind began to whirl. They were witnessing a debacle. He felt guilty of letting them get by with it. He’d never once lied to Berlin, yet now in order not to contradict Wirth’s commendation he must falsify a report to spare the man who was to blame. The very man he’d been so proud of once, now delivered unto the velvet hands of a spy. How had it ever come to this? Why did it have to be him?

  A mother held a freezing child close as she leaned against the shivering flesh of a stranger.

  Heckenholt let off on the accelerator, the motor throbbed, then idled unevenly. In the cab he leaned back, lighting a cigarette.

  A group of Ukrainians, carrying hammers and pliers, ran toward the rear of the building.

  The big sergeant waiting near the tin-plated door looked down at the little boy shivering against his mother’s legs. “You haven’t been crying, have you, commander? That’s not the way to do it. The commander never cries. He’s the strong one. He’s the one who gives the orders.”

  7

  There across the room from his perch on the piano Gunther stared as if being dead was his excuse for hating her.

  She marched toward him, picked up the frame and slammed it face-down on the polished wood. On her way into the bedroom she turned out the light and felt her way along the familiar path to bed. She pulled the covers up to her chin. Just then she thought she heard a rapping on the door. She waited a moment. There it was again. She flung the covers off, threw on her dressing gown and flopped out in her muff mules to the door. She pulled it open.

  Stumpff stood there, looking tired in his rumpled uniform. He pulled off his cap and looked her up and down. “My apologies, Madame. I know it’s late.”

  Geli became aware of being out of breath. “Yes, I was in bed.”

  There was a sooty look about his face. He stared at her through bloodshot eyes, beneath which dark crescents hung like shadows.

  “Come in,” she said, swinging the door open.

  He plodded in, brushing a faint putrescent smell past her, made straight for the sofa and sprawled onto it. “Aahh!” He lifted one dusty boot, examined it, then let it fall back with a thud. “Forgive me, Madame, I know I’m a sight.”

  “I can see you’re awfully tired.”

  “If you think I look tired, you should see Obermeyer. Those roads in Poland - some of them goat paths at best. Next time I’ll take the train.” He sat up a little, gloves still snugly on.

  “I’ve seen Langsdorff,” she said.

  He pushed himself more upright, patted the cushion beside him. “Excellent. Come over here and tell me about it.”

  She went over and sat beside him, crossed her legs and let the silk slip back behind her knee.

  “All right, then, what’ve you got?” Stumpff said.
r />   “Not a great deal, yet. He seemed to like me, but these things take time, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do indeed,” Stumpff said softly, his voice tinged with wonderment as he let a smoldering leer come out from under his heavy lids. “How did your story go over, the one we rehearsed?”

  “I’m pretty sure he bought it. I played it straight, threw in a little shivering and he asked me to come in.”

  “You had your looks to keep you warm.”

  She pursed her lips to toss that off. “There was one moment,” she said.

  He was watching her narrowly, mouth slackly open. “Yes?”

  “When he cornered me about the oddity of being a French woman living in Berlin. I made it sound like French instructors were in demand.”

  “Pretty ones.” He grinned.

  “One thing,” she said, “I caught him listening to the BBC. He had the volume turned up quite loud.”

  “How loud?”

  “Loud enough for anybody to hear out in the corridor or the next flat.”

  Stumpff flung one hand out carelessly. “One of our privileges forbidden to the average citizen. I tune in to those lies myself when I get bored. How do you think he’ll feel about your going back?”

  “I have already.”

  “Oh!”

  “This time he wasn’t there. His housekeeper, Frau Hintz, invited me in and we had quite a nice, long chat. She told me the story of how Langsdorff came to her defense one time when she was treated badly by some rude young officer.”

  “Ah, yes. That would have been Lieutenant Baab. Apparently the churl had it coming. Kurt is one officer you don’t want to rub the wrong way.” He gave her a sidelong look, then moved slightly and didn’t seem to know that, pressing up so close against her, his arm touched her breast.

  She let it be.

  He said, “Getting chummy with the housekeeper won’t hurt, but I wouldn’t overdo it.”

  “It wasn’t hard to like her,” Geli said.

  He put his hand out just above her knee, then took it back and buried it with the other hand between his legs. “You seem to be off to a good start, Madame. Keep it up, but you’re going to have to go one better.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want you to pay close attention to his deportment – moments of distraction, sullenness, perhaps, distress you can’t see any cause for at the time.”

  “Well, I’ve already -”

  “No, things have come to light since I last saw you. Quite disturbing things I will be counting on you to tap into. Understood?”

  “Yes, of course. You were right about one thing. He’ll be a tough nut to crack. I don’t know whether -”

  “Do you want out, Madame?” he said with a flash of annoyance.

  “No, I’m only saying I sometimes don’t know where I am. Feeling around in the dark. It would help if -”

  “We’ve been over this. Don’t ask me to say things for which I could be shot.”

  “Saving a bullet for me, too, besides the cheese and cigarettes.”

  “Bullets are no laughing matter, Madame.”

  “No laugh intended, sir.”

  He held up a gloved palm. “Listen to me, now. I have some information about your husband.”

  Geli clutched at her dressing gown. “What kind of information?”

  “My friend dug up some items that could have a bearing on his whereabouts. Or his fate. This happened in June of ’41, at the height of Guderian’s drive to Moscow. Some of it made the newspapers, but not ours. Guderian was rushing ahead in his armored command vehicle when he came upon a roadblock some 60 kilometers south of Minsk. He got behind a machine gun and personally fired on a Russian tank. Quite a reckless thing to do, but that’s Guderian for you. The tank fired back, killing two other generals by his side. The Russians hurried to print this incident in their newspapers, stating that Guderian was killed. This proved to be untrue, but my informant’s attempt to learn the identity of the actual victims came to nothing. The incident was suppressed. You can see why. The assault on Moscow had begun to stall. Hitler’s orders to divert to the Ukraine was proving costly. We didn’t need any more bad news from Russia. Especially not of an embarrassing sort for Guderian. The truth kept under wraps is no sin in light of the judicious manner, for the sake of morale, with which Herr Goebbels keeps us in the dark. Now you say your husband went to Russia as a part of Guderian’s staff.”

  “Yes. Then are you saying Gunther could have been one of those generals killed?”

  “Not with any certainty. No names have been released. One could say that things add up. The time of your last letter from your husband, the runaround you get from OKA, your stipends cut off. They can’t afford to acknowledge the existence of a casualty not approved by the Minister of Propaganda.”

  She understood, and suddenly felt empty in this raw light on the selfishness with which she’d done away with Gunther in so many other ways than the bullets he had no defense against. “You’re telling me he’s dead, then, aren’t you?”

  “No. There is every chance of it, but not necessarily.”

  She turned toward the piano and saw that Gunther wasn’t there, as if his ghost had blown him over.

  Stumpff’s head turned at the same time, following her gaze. “Looks like your photograph fell over, there, Madame.”

  “Oh! I was dusting. Stupid me.” She got up and hurried over to the piano, picked up the frame and used a reverent touch to pull the prop back out and stand it up. She came back to him and sat down, this time not so close.

  Stumpff’s crooked finger came up under her chin, lifting to get her into his line of sight. “You mustn’t do a lot of worrying, Madame. Leave the worrying to me.” He got up laboriously. “You’ve done well, so far. I’m going to be away again for upwards of another week. I’ve instructed Obermeyer to keep the car at your disposal in my absence.”

  “I can do without that kind of transportation, thank you.”

  “Don’t be silly. Make it easy on yourself.”

  “I’d rather walk than -”

  “Now, now. Throw the poor man a bone. He’s going to have his feelings hurt.”

  She emptied a groan into a whimper. “What about my feelings?”

  “I’m only saying if you need a ride, he’ll be at your disposal.”

  “Going off again to Poland?” she made innocent eyes at him, hearing Hanne in her mind again.

  He levelled a dark look on her, letting it linger. “It goes without saying you’re never to mention my name. Not to this Frau Hintz. Nobody. If Langsdorff should ever make mention of me, in any context, you’re to report that to me at once.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “We do travel together occasionally. The fact is, he’s about a day behind me in Warsaw. Make it easy on yourself and try to cooperate with Obermeyer. Why should you stand for hours on the underground?” He reached for his cap, ran his fingers around the sweat band.

  “Don’t expect me to be taking any joyrides with that creature,” she said. Then in a caressing voice, “By the way, Willy. I’m running rather short of cigarettes. Could you do anything about that?” She fingered his sleeve.

  He stared down at her hand as if it were some stain that had escaped his notice. “I’ll get Obermeyer to bring some around for you.”

  “Why couldn’t you, before you leave?”

  “Give Obermeyer a break. That’s what he’s for.”

  She shrugged and stuck out her lower lip. “Cigarettes are coming at a higher price these days, Willy.”

  He tossed off a wooden smile. “Be nice to Obermeyer and he’ll be nice to you.”

  “Maybe I’ll just go without till you get back.”

  He blew a snicker through his nose. “Suit yourself. Goodnight, then. Obermeyer is quite harmless, really.”

  “You might remind him of that before you leave.”

  He stared at her hopelessly, then chortling drily turned for the door, flung it open breezily
and went out.

  8

  Geli barely made the last tram running from Dennewitzplatz and it was pitch dark in the street when she got out.

  A raid was due at nine o’clock.

  From the corner where the watch repair shop had been boarded up she ran three blocks before the siren started. She stopped and looked up at the sky. A misty slice of moon shone through the high grey clouds. There was a distant thrum of the B-17s. The first bombs hit far away, their flashes spurting low, lighting up the clouds.

  She’d given it another day, hoping Stumpff was right and Langsdorff would be home. She counted on it as she bounded up the stairway.

  Just as she raised her fist to knock she heard Frau Hintz’s voice inside. She held back, listening. Somebody else was in there, a man’s voice, unintelligible. She went ahead and rapped hard on the door. Shoes inside clumped toward it, the latch clunked and it swung open widely. There in the doorway Frau Hintz had a bright grin spread across her broad, leathery face. Behind her in a shroud of cigarette smoke hovering over the kitchen table two pairs of curious eyes stared at Geli like dim shapes at sea. She saw some papers spread out on the table under a lamp. A bottle stood there, three small empty tumblers.

  “Oh, it’s you, dear!”

  “I’m so sorry” Geli said. “I see you have visitors. Is Kurt -?”

  “Due any minute now. Come in and wait.” She gestured toward the two men at the table. “You’ve only got two gentlemen ahead of you, but they won’t bite.” She shook her finger at the men sitting in the cloud smoke, hands fingering the stems of wine glasses.

  A chair screeched and the shorter man with spikes of red hair stood up, clearing his throat. “We’re just over from Lembeck, ma’am. Old friends of Kurt’s, catching up on lost time.” He spoke in a nervous voice that went with his spiked red hair like electricity with wires.

  The other man, blond with a pinched face and canny eyes that gave his scowl the look of a mask that would be too much trouble to take off, stubbed out his cigarette as he began to get up. “Three years it’s been,” he said with a slightly haughty air as he came around the table. “All that water gone under the bridges we were going to build. Big plans. The three of us were going to set the world on fire. Then the world caught fire all by itself.”