A Quiet Flame (46 page)

“What is this place?” asked Anna. “It looks more town than village, I think.”

“It was built by a German. A fellow named Carlos Wiederhold, toward the end of the last century. But quite soon after finishing it, he found an even nicer spot, to the south of here. Place called Bariloche. So he went there and built a whole town in similar style. There are lots of old comrades down there. You should visit it sometime.”

“Perhaps I will,” I said. “Always supposing I can get a clean bill of health from the doctor.”

“Naturally, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, Heinrich.”

Grund shook his head. “Only I’m still finding it kind of hard to believe. Bernie Gunther being here in Argentina, like the rest of us. I always had you pegged as a bit of a Commie. What the hell happened?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Isn’t it always?”

“But not right now, eh?”

“Sure.” Grund started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“You, a fugitive war criminal. The same as me. The war made fools of us all, didn’t it?”

“That’s certainly been my experience.”

I heard the sound of horses and looked around to see Kammler and his men riding up the slope toward us. The SS general lifted his boots out of the stirrups and slipped off his horse like a jockey. Grund went over to speak to him. Anna was watching Kammler closely. I was watching Anna. I put my hand lightly on her back. The gun wasn’t there.

“Where is it?” I murmured.

“Under my belt,” she said. “Where I can reach it.”

“If you kill him—”

“What, and spoil your little Nazi reunion? I wouldn’t want to do that.”

There seemed no point in arguing that one. I said, “If you kill him, they’ll kill us both.”

“After what I’ve seen, do you really think I care?”

“Yes. And if you don’t, then you certainly ought to. You’re still a young woman. One day you might have children. Perhaps you ought to think about them.”

“I don’t think I want to bring children into a country like this.”

“Then pick another country. I did.”

“Yes, I should think you would feel quite at home here,” she said bitterly. “For you, this must seem like a real home away from home.”

“Anna, please be quiet. Be quiet and let me think.”

When Kammler had finished speaking to Grund, he approached us with a sort of smile on his lean face, taking his cap off, his arm extended toward us both in a show of avuncular hospitality. Now that he had dismounted, I was able to get a better look at him. He was well over six feet tall. His hair was invisibly short and gray at the sides, but longer and darker on the crown, so that it looked like a yarmulke. The skull on his sticklike neck had been taken from Easter Island, probably. The eyes were set in cavelike sockets so deep and shadowy they almost looked empty, as if the bird of prey that hatched him had pecked them out. His physique was very spare but strong, like something that had been unwound from one of Melville’s spools of Glasgow barbed wire. For a moment I couldn’t quite place his accent. And then I guessed he was Prussian—one of those Baltic-coast Prussians who eat herring for breakfast and keep griffins for sport.

“I’ve been talking to your old friend Grund,” he said, “and I’ve decided not to kill you.”

“I’m sure we’re very relieved to hear it,” said Anna, and smiled sweetly at me. “Aren’t we, dear?”

Kammler glanced uncertainly at Anna. “Yes, Grund has vouched for you. And so did your Colonel Montalbán.”

“You called Montalbán?” I said.

“You seem surprised at that.”

“It’s just that I don’t see any telephone lines up here.”

“You’re right. There are none. No, I called him from a phone down there.” He turned and pointed into the valley. “An old service telephone from the days when the hydroelectrical people from Capri were here.”

“That’s quite a view you have there, Doctor,” said Anna.

“Yes. Of course, soon much of it will be under several fathoms of water.”

“Won’t that be a little bit inconvenient?” she asked him. “What will happen to your telephone? To your road?”

He smiled patiently. “We shall build another road, of course. Workers are plentiful and cheap in this part of the world.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling thinly. “I can imagine.”

“Besides,” he added, “a lake will be nicer. I think it will be just like Switzerland.”

We went up to the main house. It was made of stone bricks and pale-colored wood. I counted about twenty-five windows on the three-story front. The central part of the house was a red-roofed turret, at the top of which was a man with a pair of binoculars and a rifle. The lower windows had Tyrolean-style shutters and window boxes filled with flowers. As we came up to the front door, I thought we might meet the Aryan Ski Association coming the other way. Certainly the air was more Alpine up here than it had been down in the valley.

Inside the house, we were met by German-speaking servants, including a butler wearing a white cotton jacket. A big log was burning in the fireplace. There were flowers in tall vases, and pictures and bronzes of horses everywhere you looked.

“What a lovely house,” said Anna. “It’s all very Germanic.”

“You’ll both stay to dinner, of course,” said Kammler. “My chef used to cook for Hermann Goering.”

“Now, there was someone who really enjoyed his food,” Anna said.

Kammler smiled at Anna, uncertain of her temperament. I knew how he felt. I was trying to think of a way of getting her to shut up without using the back of my hand.

“My dear,” he said, “after your exertions, perhaps you’d like to go and freshen up a bit.” To a hefty-looking maid hovering in the background, he said, “Show her to a room upstairs.”

I watched Anna go up a staircase as wide as a small road and hoped she would have the good sense not to come back with the gun in her hand. Now that Kammler was being friendly and hospitable, my greatest fear was that she might turn into an avenging angel.

We went into an enormous living room. Heinrich Grund followed at a respectful distance, like a faithful aide-de-camp. He was wearing a blue shirt and tie and a gray suit that was nicely tailored, although not well enough to conceal the fact that he was also wearing a shoulder holster. None of these people looked like they were taking any chances with their security. The living room was like an art gallery with sofas. There were several old masters and quite a few new ones. I could see that Kammler had escaped from the ruins of Europe with a lot more than just his life. In a tall, freestanding Oriental-style cage, a canary flapped its wings and twittered like a little yellow fairy. Past a pair of French windows an immaculate lawn stretched into the distance like the green felt on some divine billiards table. It all looked a very long way from Auschwitz-Birkenau. But in case it wasn’t quite far enough, there was a plane parked on the lawn.

I heard a pop and turned to see Kammler opening a bottle.

“I usually have a glass of champagne about this time. Will you join me?”

I said I would.

“It’s my one real luxury,” he said, handing me a flute.

I almost laughed as I noticed the box of Partagas on the sideboard, the Lalique decanter and glasses, and the silver bowl of roses on the coffee table.

“Deutz,” he said. “Rather difficult to get up here.” And then, lifting his glass in a toast, he said, “To Germany.”

“To Germany,” I said, and sipped the delicious champagne. Glancing out of the window at the little silver plane on the runway-sized lawn, I said, “What’s that? A BFW?”

“Yes. A 109 Taifun. Do you fly, Herr Gunther?”

“No, sir. I finished my war working for the OKW. Military Intelligence, on the Russian front. Accurate plane-spotting was a matter of life and death.”

“I was in Luftwaffe when the war started,” said Kammler. “Working as an architect for the Air Ministry. After 1940, there really wasn’t much opportunity for an architect with the RLM, so I joined the SS. I was chief of Department C, building soap factories and new weapons facilities.”

“Soap factories?”

Kammler chuckled. “Yes. You know.
Soap.
”

“Oh. Yes. The camps. Of course.” I drank some champagne.

“How’s your champagne?”

“Excellent.” But the truth was, it wasn’t. Not anymore. The sour taste in my mouth had made certain of that.

“Heinrich and I got out early, in May 1945,” said Kammler. “He was my head of security at Jonastal, weren’t you, Heinrich?”

“Yes, Herr Doktor.” Grund raised his glass to his master. “We just got in a staff car and drove west.”

“We were building the German bomb at Jonastal, so naturally the Amis welcomed us with open arms. And we went to New Mexico. To work on their own bomb program. We stayed for almost a year. By then, however, it had dawned on them that, at the end of the war, I was effectively number three in the SS hierarchy. Which made my continued employment in the USA very sensitive. So I came to Argentina. And Heinrich was good enough to come with me.”

“It was my honor, sir.”

“Gradually, I was able to get most of my things out of storage and shipped here. Which is how you find me now. It’s a little remote, but we have pretty much everything you would want. My wife and daughter are with me now. And they’ll be joining us for dinner. Where exactly are they now, Heinrich?”

“They’re looking at some new calves, sir.”

“How many cattle do you have?” I inquired.

“About thirty thousand head of cattle and about fifteen thousand sheep. In many ways, the work is not so dissimilar from what I did during the war. We rear the beasts, drive them into Tucumán, and then transfer them by rail to Buenos Aires for slaughter.”

He seemed unashamed by this confession.

“We’re not the biggest
estancia
in these parts. Not by a long way. But we bring a certain efficiency to the running of an estate not usually seen in Argentina.”

“
German
efficiency, sir,” added Grund.

“Precisely,” affirmed Kammler. He turned to face a little Führer shrine I hadn’t noticed before. There were several photographs of Hitler, a small bronze bust of his distinctive head, a few military decorations, a Nazi armband, and a pair of Sabbath candlesticks that looked as if someone used them to keep the leader’s flame alight on the Nazi high holy days—January 30, April 20, April 30, and November 8. Kammler nodded reverently at his shrine. “Yes, indeed. German efficiency. German superiority. We have
him
to thank for always reminding us of that fact.”

I didn’t see it that way, of course, but for the moment, I kept my reservations to myself. We were a very long way from the comparative safety of Buenos Aires.

When I’d finished my champagne, Kammler suggested I might go upstairs and wash. The maid showed me to a bedroom where I found Anna lying on an elaborately carved wooden bed. She waited until the maid was gone, then sprang up.

“This is very cozy, isn’t it? His own private Berghof. Just like the Führer. Who knows? Maybe he’ll put in a guest appearance at dinner. Now, that would be interesting. Or how about Martin Bormann? You know, I always wanted to meet him. Only I ought to tell you now, I’m a little worried about dinner. I don’t know the words of the Horst Wessel Song. And let’s not beat around the burning bush. I’m a Jew. Jews and Nazis don’t mix.”

“I don’t mind you sticking it to me, Anna. But please try to cut the sarcasm in front of the general. He’s beginning to notice. And no confessions about who and what you are. That would really cook our goose.” I looked around the room. “Where’s the gun?”

“Hidden.”

“Hidden where?”

She shook her head.

“Still thinking of shooting him?”

“I know, he should suffer more. Shooting is too quick. Gas would be better. Perhaps I can leave the oven on in the kitchen before we go to bed tonight.”

“Anna, please. Listen to me. These are very dangerous people. Even now, Heinrich is carrying a gun. And he’s a professional. Before you can even cock that Smith, he’ll blow your head off.”

“What do you mean, ‘cock’?”

I shook my head. “See what I mean? You don’t even know how to shoot.”

“You could show me.”

“Look, those dead people in that camp. They could be anyone.”

“They could be. But they’re not. We both know who and what they are. You said so yourself. It was a camp created by order of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. What else would they want a camp for but to imprison foreign refugees? And your friend. The Scotsman. Melville. It was he who mentioned Directive Twelve. An order for barbed wire to be delivered to a German SS general called Kammler.
Directive Twelve,
Bernie. That implies something more serious than Directive Eleven, don’t you think?” She took a deep breath. “Besides, before we left Tucumán this morning, you told me it was Kammler who built the big death camps. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Treblinka. Surely you must agree that he deserves to be shot for that alone.”

“Perhaps. Yes, of course. But I can promise you, shooting Kammler here, today, isn’t the answer. There has to be another way.”

“I don’t see how we can arrest him. Not in Argentina. Do you?”

I shook my head.

“Then shooting him is best.”

I smiled. “See what I mean? There’s no such thing as a murderer. There’s just a plumber or a shopkeeper or a lawyer who kills someone else. Ordinary people. People like you, Anna.”

“This isn’t murder. This will be an execution.”

“Don’t you think that’s what those SS men used to tell themselves when they started shooting pits full of Jews?”

“All I know is that he can’t be allowed to get away with it.”

“Anna, I promise you. I will think of something. Just don’t do anything rash. All right?”

She remained silent. I took her hand but she snatched it away again, angrily.