A Quiet Flame (19 page)

“You make a very fair point, Commissar. It’s quite a dilemma, isn’t it? Perhaps the best thing would be to put the matter before the Prussian Medical Ethics Committee and let them decide.”

“How long would that take?”

Kassner looked vague. “A week or two? Perhaps a month.”

“And what do you think they would decide?”

He sighed. “I would never like to second-guess a medical ethics committee. I’m sure it’s the same in the police. There are always proper procedures to be observed. Although they don’t really seem to have been observed here. I wonder what your superiors would make of your conduct toward me?” He shook his head. “But let us suppose that the committee turns down your request. That’s a realistic possibility, I think. What could you do then? I suppose you could try to interview everyone coming in and out of the clinic. Of course, it’s only a small percentage who are in the clinical trial. The vast majority of my patients—and I do mean a vast majority, Commissar—is still using neosalvarsan. And what would happen then? Why, you would frighten people away, of course. And we would have an epidemic of venereal disease in Berlin. As things stand now, we are barely controlling the disease. There are tens of thousands of people in this city suffering from jelly, as you call it. No, Commissar, my own suggestion to you would be to try to find a separate line of inquiry. Yes, sir, I do believe that would be the best thing for all concerned.”

“You make some good points, Doctor,” I said.

“I’m so glad you think so.”

“However, when I was in your office, I couldn’t help noticing that one of the addresses on your list of patients using protonsil is this address. Perhaps you’d care to comment on that.”

“I see. That was very sharp of you, Commissar. I suppose you think that might make me a suspect.”

“It’s a possibility I can’t afford to ignore, sir.”

“No, of course not.” Kassner finished his drink and got up to pour himself another. But I still wasn’t on his list of people he wanted to have a drink with. “Well, then, it’s like this. It’s not uncommon for doctors to infect themselves with a disease they’re trying to cure.” He sat down again, burped discreetly behind his glass, and then toasted me silently.

“Is that what you’re saying, Doctor? That you deliberately infected yourself with a venereal disease to test protonsil on yourself?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Sometimes it’s not enough to test the side effects of a drug on other people. They are less able to describe the full effects of a drug on the human body. As I believe I stated when first we met, it’s rather difficult to keep tabs on patients in these cases. Sometimes the only patient one can really trust is oneself. I’m sorry if you think that makes me a suspect. But I can assure you that I’ve never murdered anyone. As it happens, though, I believe I can supply an alibi for the day and night of that poor girl’s death.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.”

“I was attending a urologists’ conference, in Hannover.”

I nodded and took out my cigarettes. “Do you mind?”

He shook his head and sipped some of his drink. The alcohol hit his stomach and made it start rumbling.

“Here’s what I’d like to suggest, Doctor. Something that might help this inquiry. Something you might like to do voluntarily that wouldn’t offend your sense of ethics.”

“If it’s within my power.”

I lit my cigarette and leaned forward so I was in range of the scallop-edged ashtray.

“Have you ever had any psychiatric training, sir?”

“Some. As a matter of fact, I did my medical training in Vienna and went to several lectures on psychiatry. Once I even considered working in the field of psychotherapy.”

“If you are agreeable, I’d like you to look over all your own patient notes. See if there’s any one of them who perhaps stands out as a possible murderer.”

“And supposing there was? One patient who stood out. What then?”

“Why, then we could discuss the matter. And perhaps discover some mutually acceptable way forward.”

“Very well. I can assure you I’ve no desire to see this man kill again. I have a daughter myself.”

I glanced around the apartment.

“Oh, she lives with her mother, in Bavaria. We’re divorced.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“And the man who was here when I called earlier on today?”

“Ah, you must mean Beppo. He’s a friend of my wife’s and came to collect some of her things in his car. He’s a student, in Munich.” Kassner yawned. “I’m sorry, Commissar, but it’s been a very long day. Is there anything else? Only I’d like to take a bath. You can’t imagine how much I look forward to taking a bath after a day in the clinic. Well, perhaps you
can
imagine.”

“Yes, sir, I can imagine it quite well enough.”

We parted, more or less cordially. But I wondered just how cordial Kassner would have been if I’d mentioned Josef Goebbels. There was nothing around the apartment to indicate Kassner was a Nazi. On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine Goebbels taking the risk of being treated by anyone other than a trusted Nazi Party member. Joey wasn’t the type to put much faith in things like ethics and professional confidence.

Sadly, there was nothing to suggest that the Nazi Party leader in Berlin might actually be a psychopathic murderer, either. A dose of jelly was one thing. The murder and mutilation of a fifteen-year-old girl was quite another.

BUENOS AIRES, 1950

I
DID NOT OPEN the old KRIPO files that Colonel Montalbán had somehow obtained from Berlin. In spite of what I had told him, the details of the case were still quite familiar to me. I knew perfectly well why it was I had been unable to apprehend Anita Schwarz’s murderer. But I started work all the same.

I was looking for a missing girl who just might be dead. And I was keeping an eye out for one of my old comrades who just might be a psychopath.

Neither of the investigative questions I had been set by the hero-worshipping Argentine policeman seemed likely to get the answer he was looking for. Mostly, I was just looking out for myself. But I went along with his idea, of course. What other choice did I have?

At first, I was nervous about playing the part the colonel had written for me. For one thing, I wanted as little to do with other ex-SS men as possible; and, for another, I was convinced that, in spite of Montalbán’s assurances, they would be hostile to someone asking a lot of questions concerning events most of them probably wanted to forget. But, more often than not, the colonel turned out to be right. As soon as I mentioned the word “passport,” it seemed there was nothing that Europe’s most wanted war criminals were not prepared to talk to me about. Indeed, sometimes it seemed that many of these creatures actually welcomed the chance to unburden themselves—to talk about their crimes and even to justify them, as if they were meeting a psychiatrist or a priest.

In the beginning, I went to their places of work. Most of the Nazis in Buenos Aires had good, well-paying jobs. They worked for a variety of companies, such as the Capri Construction Company, the Fuldner Bank, Vianord Travel, the local Mercedes-Benz plant, the Osram lightbulb company, Caffetti, Orbis Gas Appliances, the Wander Laboratory, and Sedalana Textiles. A few worked in slightly humbler occupations at the Dürer Haus bookshop in the city center, the Adam restaurant, and the ABC café. One or two worked for the secret police, although these remained—for the moment, at least—something of a mystery to me.

A man at work, however, is often a very different person from the man he is at home. It was important that I encountered these men relaxed and off guard. And after a short while, I started turning up at their houses and their apartments in true Gestapo fashion, which is to say late at night, or early in the morning. I kept my eyes and ears open and, always, I kept my true opinion of these men a secret. It would hardly have done to give my honest impression of any of them. There were times, of course, when I wanted to unholster the Smith & Wesson given to me by Montalbán and put a bullet in an old comrade’s head. More commonly, I went away from their homes wondering what kind of country I was in that would give sanctuary to beasts like these. Of course, I already knew, only too well, what kind of country had produced them.

Some were happy, or at least content with their new lives. Some had attractive new wives or mistresses, and sometimes both. One or two were rich. Only a few were filled with quiet regret. But mostly they were ruthlessly unrepentant.

THE ONLY SORROW displayed by Dr. Carl Vaernet related to his no longer being able to experiment freely on homosexual prisoners at Buchenwald concentration camp. He was quite open about this, his life’s “most important work.”

Vaernet was from Denmark but living with his wife and children at Calle Uriarte 2251, close to the Plaza Italia in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires. Dark, thick-set, with shadowy eyes and a mouth full of pessimism and bad breath, he was operating an endocrinology clinic offering expensive “cures” to the better-off parents of Argentine homosexuals. A very masculine country, Argentina regarded being
joto,
or
pájaro,
as a danger to the health of the nation.

“When your Red Cross passport runs out,” I told Vaernet, “that is, if it hasn’t run out already, you will have to apply to the federal police for a special passport. To get this passport you will have to prove that while you have been resident in Argentina you’ve been a person of good conduct. Friends—if you have any—will have to oblige with testimonials as to your character and integrity. If this proves to be the case—as I’m sure it will—I myself will issue you with the good-conduct pass that you can then use to apply to a court of first instance for an Argentine passport. Naturally, the passport can be in a different name. The important thing is that you will be able to travel freely again in Europe, without fear of arrest. Like any normal Argentine citizen.”

“Well, of course, we’d like to visit our eldest son, Kjeld, in Denmark,” confessed Vaernet. He smiled at the thought of it. “Much as we love it here in Buenos Aires, home is always home, eh, Herr Hausner?”

We were sitting in the drawing room. There was a baby grand piano with a number of framed photographs on the lid. One of the photographs was of the Peróns and their poodles—Eva holding the black one, Juan holding the white—together looking like an advertisement for Scotch whiskey.

Vaernet’s wife served tea and
facturas,
little sweet pastries that were very popular with the sweet-toothed
porteños.
She was tall, thin, and nervous. I took out a pad of paper and a pen and tried to appear properly bureaucratic.

“Date and place of birth?” I asked.

“April 28, 1893. Copenhagen.”

“My own birthday is April 20,” I said. When he looked blank, I added, “The Führer’s birthday.” It wasn’t true, of course, but it was always a good way of making men like him think that I was some kind of die-hard Nazi and, therefore, someone to be trusted.

“Of course. How silly of me not to remember.”

“That’s all right. I’m from Munich.” Another lie. “Ever been to Munich?”

“No.”

“Lovely city. At least it was.”

After a short series of anodyne questions, I said, “Many Germans have come to Argentina believing that the government is not interested in their backgrounds. That it doesn’t care what a man did in Europe before he arrived in this country. I’m afraid that just isn’t true. At least not anymore. The government doesn’t judge a man for what he did during the war. The past is past. And whatever you’ve done, it certainly won’t affect your being able to stay in this country. But I’m sure you’ll agree it does have some bearing on who you are now and what kind of citizen you might become. What I’m saying is this: The government doesn’t want to issue a passport to anyone who might do something to make himself an embarrassment to the government. So. You may speak to me in total confidence. Remember, I was an SS officer, like yourself. My honor is loyalty. But I do urge you to be candid, Doctor.”

Dr. Vaernet nodded. “I’m certainly not ashamed of what I did,” he said.

At this, his wife got up and left the room, as if the prospect of her husband’s speaking frankly about his work might be too much for her. The way the conversation turned out, I can’t say I blamed her.

“Reichsführer Himmler regarded my attempts to surgically cure homosexuals as work of the greatest national importance to the ideal of German racial purity,” he said earnestly. “At Buchenwald, I implanted hormone briquettes into the groins of a number of the pink triangles. All of these men were cured of their homosexuality and released back into normal life.”

There was a lot, lot more of this, and while Vaernet struck me as being a thoroughgoing bastard—I never yet met a queer who didn’t strike me as someone quite comfortable being that way—I wasn’t convinced he was a psychopath of the kind that could have eviscerated a fifteen-year-old just for the hell of it.

On the piano, next to the picture of the Peróns, was a photograph of a girl about the same age as Fabienne von Bader. I picked it up. “Your daughter?”

“Yes.”

“She goes to the same school as Fabienne von Bader, doesn’t she?”

Vaernet nodded.

“Naturally, you’d be aware she’s disappeared.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Were they friends?”

“No, not really.”

“Has she spoken about it?”

“Yes. But nothing important, you understand. If it had been of any relevance, I’d have called the police.”

“Of course.”

He shrugged. “They asked a lot of questions about Fabienne.”

“They were here?”

“Yes. My wife and I formed the impression that they thought Fabienne had run away.”

“It’s what children do, sometimes. Well.” I turned toward the door. “I had better be going. Thank you for your time. Oh, one more thing. We were talking about proving oneself to be a person of good character.”