The Grave of Truth (27 page)

God was the arbiter of her fate; she had made Him a gift of her life when she became a nun. It was His will that she should find herself protecting what she hated most. When the moment came that she could look on the face of a certain novice and feel pure sisterly love in Christ, then her vocation was fulfilled. She prayed for that moment, as she did every day of her life. When Benediction was over and the last hymn sung, she led the way out of the chapel. In spite of herself she glanced at the back row of nuns, and then as quickly looked away. She could feel those other eyes upon her, watching, the head turning slightly till she was out of sight.

Sister Aloysius hurried up to her as she came out of the chapel into the main hall. ‘Reverend Mother, excuse me, there was a telephone message. A Herr Holler called. He asked you to telephone him as soon as you came out of chapel. He said it was most important. I've written the number down and put it on your desk.'

‘Thank you, Sister.' She went into her private room, closing the door.

The scrap of paper with the number of the Munich police headquarters lay like a white feather on the wooden desk. The Sister's rounded writing looked as if a child had taken down the message. Heinrich Holler. She knew well who he was, and what the message meant. The convent had kept him out, shielded by the power of diplomatic relations with the Vatican. She had been a young woman when she first came to the convent in Munich; she hadn't known who the woman and the child were; that secret was entrusted to her when she became the Reverend Mother.

And it was she who kept vigil beside the deathbed of Eva Braun's sister and promised to protect the girl from the evils of the world outside. Her hand had closed Gretl Fegelein's eyes when she was dead. But now the walls were breached. Poor, aged Father Grunwald had been struck down, and a man posing as a priest had got into the convent, asking for a woman who was dead. She had known then that the outside world couldn't be held back any longer. She had sent a message to Rome, and taken her childhood friend Minna down to the little crypt where the sister-in-law of Adolf Hitler had been buried. It was Mother Katherine's only hope of keeping the promise made by her Church, and when Holler telephoned she knew that it had failed. Gretl Fegelein's grave had not been proof enough that there was nothing left to hide. She dialled the number and asked to speak to Holler. He had known her father well.

He didn't ask for an appointment; she noticed that, in spite of his courtesy. He arranged a time to call upon her. He was bringing a representative from the United States security services with him. She sat quietly after the conversation, one hand plying with the silver crucifix on its chain round her neck. Rome had given her instructions. She would obey and carry them out, but above all she must resist the cry of her own heart to be relieved of her responsibility. She had no right to hope for that, because the love Christ asked of her had still to conquer antipathy and fear. She closed her mind to everything but prayer. When she went to join the community for supper, she was serene. She had placed tomorrow in God's keeping.

‘I'm tired tonight,' Minna said. ‘Would you mind, Max?'

‘Of course I mind,' he answered. They were holding hands, and he squeezed her fingers gently. ‘I like making love to you, or haven't you noticed—don't be silly, darling—of course you're tired. That damned bed's too narrow for two to sleep comfortably. Let's have something with our coffee, and then we can go upstairs. Brandy?'

‘No, not tonight. You're very good to me, Max. Why can't you be a pig sometimes?'

‘Why should I be?' He played with her fingers; they were long and thin, with pale varnished nails. He found her hands exciting.

‘Because then I wouldn't love you so much,' she said. The waiter came and took the order for coffee in the lounge. Max pulled back her chair and followed her out of the restaurant. He saw a man watching her as she passed his table; he was young and good-looking, and Max glared at him. She chose a corner table. He lit a cigarette and gave it to her.

‘You know you've never said that to me before, out of bed.'

‘That I loved you? How funny; I thought I had, many times.'

‘No,' Max insisted. ‘Never. Tonight was the first time. That makes tonight rather special, doesn't it?'

‘Yes,' she said gently, ‘I think it does. And you still don't mind if we don't sleep together—maybe I'm not as tired as I thought.'

‘Oh yes, you are,' he said. ‘A good night's sleep for you, and who knows I might just wake you early in the morning. I've been thinking about something. Here's our coffee.'

‘What have you been thinking about?' He saw the intense look that changed her face and made it watchful.

‘About ourselves,' he said. ‘You and me, for a change. Relax, my darling, we're not going to think or talk about anything else.'

‘All right,' she said. She sighed. ‘Just about us. Tell me what it was you were thinking.'

‘Only that if you married me we wouldn't have to take separate rooms in hotels,' he said.

‘Max,' Minna said, ‘Max, please. You
are
married. You're not a man who can throw his responsibilities aside and be happy. I can't think of anything permanent yet; it's too soon after losing Sigmund. And I keep thinking how unhappy your wife must be.'

He leaned back in the chair, cradling the glass of brandy in his hands. He didn't feel angry because he felt she was evading the issue. She had said she loved him. After that, in his mind, the other obstacles simply melted away.

‘Minna,' he said firmly, ‘let me tell you about my wife and family. And before I start I want you to understand one thing. If I'd never met you, I don't think I would have gone back. I've been unhappy and frustrated for years, and I haven't been faithful to my wife either. You imagine a sad, neglected woman, and fretful kids worrying because they haven't heard from Daddy.' He surprised her by laughing; it was mocking and angry. ‘I married Ellie in England in the fifties. It wasn't exactly pleasant being a German in London at that time. The English hated us; I was very lonely and very guilty because of being German. It was a time of national self-disgust for most of us who were abroad. The concentration camps, the Gestapo, the murder of millions of Jews. I didn't know where to hide myself. Ellie wasn't just a pretty girl, she was friendly and understanding, and she loved me. We had a son and then a daughter and by this time I was with
Newsworld
and doing very well. I had my job. And Ellie had the children. She didn't need to mother me any more because there were Peter and Francine to look after, and her whole life revolved around them. They're not nice children, Minna. Maybe it's because she spoiled them, or maybe the mixture of her and me doesn't work very well. My son is a lout who's never thought of anything or anyone but himself since he was old enough to think at all. Francine whines and wheedles because he's a bully to her, but she's as selfish in her way as he is. My wife thinks that Freud and Spock rule the world, and the only function she and I have is to pamper and pander to our children. My work doesn't interest her; I don't interest her, except as Peter and Francine's father. Maybe I'm being unfair but that's the kind of marriage we have, and I don't want any more of it.'

He offered her the glass of brandy. ‘I promise you one thing. If you walked out on me tomorrow, I wouldn't go back to Ellie.'

Minna sipped the brandy and handed it back; the glass was warm from his hands.

‘My son Helmut,' she said. ‘He's not selfish or anything like that. And he worshipped his father. He doesn't like me very much. And if I'm honest, I don't really like him. I've never admitted that before.'

‘It's not an easy thing to face,' Max said. ‘The world is full of misconceptions; one of the biggest is that you automatically love your blood relations.'

‘Sigmund did,' she said. ‘He loved me and his children and it didn't matter how different we were from each other. He loved his friends, and they loved him. I'm making him sound like a prig, aren't I—but that's not true. He was very much a man.'

‘He must have been,' Max said, ‘for you to be what you are. He wouldn't grudge you happiness—not the man I talked to in the Crillon. I've interviewed a lot of men and women with façades that fooled the outside world. I know what's real and what's fake. Your husband was the real thing. I wouldn't want to take his place, because I'm not like him. I'm just an ordinary man who loves you and wants to spend the rest of his life with you. Think of it like that.'

She smiled, and he thought she was truly beautiful at such a moment.

‘I will,' she said. ‘But you're not ordinary, not in the least. I'll go upstairs now. You finish your brandy. I won't lock the door—if you do wake early.…' She leaned across and kissed him lightly on the mouth.

He sat on in the lounge, drinking slowly; the good-looking man with sleek blond hair who had ogled her in the restaurant was sitting at a table on the left. He was reading a newspaper, and it lowered for a moment as Minna walked past him. He left the lounge not long after she did, but Max Steiner didn't notice. He had made up his mind to so something that night which had been nagging at his conscience, and which his talk with Minna had made imperative. He went to reception and asked them to put in a call to Ellie in London.

Minna had undressed and, following a lifelong routine, she was brushing her hair. It was fine hair that crackled with static electricity and flew out in fine gold strands under the brush strokes. It soothed her when it was done by someone else. Sigmund used to brush it for her before she went to bed. It was often a prelude to making love. He liked her hair long, and she compromised to please him. It swept down past her shoulders when it wasn't held in place. She watched herself in the dressing-table mirror; how familiar and yet how alien the woman looked, gazing back at her. It was a young face, and the long hair was deceptive. She had always been tall, even as a child, with long limbs and an athletic body which rounded as she grew up. Rather like a boy, some of her aunts had said, not with approval. She had been dressed in an old suit of her brother's with her hair hidden under a cap when they were refugees from the Russians. The advance guard of the Soviet army were picked troops; picked for their savagery and Asiatic origins. Women in their eighties had been raped and left for dead by them. They had never seen a woman in a short skirt; the stories of atrocity and horror harassed the thousands fleeing to the safety of the Western Allied armies, their homes and possessions abandoned to the Russians. Be brave, her mother and father had told Minna, be a brave girl, whatever happens. How brave was she now, she asked herself.… The brush was laid aside. Her son didn't see the courage in her, only repressed emotions. He reproached her for being Prussian, as if it were her fault. But Sigmund often told her she was brave, and kissed her on account of it. And Max Steiner loved her. She had told the truth when she said she loved him. She wanted him to know and remember that.

She switched out the dressing-table light and left the latch up on her bedroom door. She lay with the bedside light on for a few minutes, then she reached out and turned it off. She had said she was tired, too tired to take him into her bed. It wasn't the truth. She was restiess and she wanted him. It was a deliberate act of self-denial. She was coming close to Sigmund, lying alone in the dark. She repeated the words spoken by her mother as they fled through bombed and burning villages with the noise of battle close behind them. ‘Be brave, Minna. Be brave whatever happens.'

At last she fell asleep.

Franconi took the lift to the second floor; two women went up with him, a mother and daughter, overweight and well dressed, chattering in Dutch. He stood back to let them pass out at the first floor, and the younger woman gave him an interested smile. He ignored it, and continued up. When the doors opened three people were waiting. He hurried out into the corridor and they got inside; the red eye on the lift indicator travelled downwards. There was no one in the corridor as he walked along it, and he opened the door to the stairs and lightly ran down to the floor below. Room 47. Adjoining Room 48. The woman had gone upstairs early and alone. He checked his watch. It was still only eleven. She could be having a bath, reading, waiting for the journalist to come and join her. It was too early to do anything. He knew there was a cubbyhole on every floor where the laundry baskets and cleaning materials were stored. He slipped inside and perched on a basket lid with the door just ajar. It gave him a clear view of the corridor and the two rooms.

In the next hour people came up and went to their bedrooms; there was a lot of talk and closing of doors, the lift was busy. It grew quieter and his watch said it was after midnight. Max Steiner had not appeared. Franconi had slight cramp in one calf, and he got down and moved outside the cubbyhole. It was very quiet. The red eye of the lift was stationary on the indicator for the ground floor.

She must be asleep by now. But what was the lover doing? A quarrel, perhaps—he didn't think so. He had seen her kiss him good night. It was twelve twenty-five.

He looked up and down the corridor once more and again to make sure that the lift was still at rest. Then he slipped the piece of cellophane out of his pocket to pick the lock of room 47, and moved towards the door.

Max was not quite sober when the call came through; he had ordered two more brandies, making the tedium of waiting an excuse. He heard the operator on the line. ‘Mrs Max Steiner take a personal call from Munich.…' And then Ellie's voice, sounding higher than normal, her Midwest accent stronger.

‘Is that you, Max?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘How are you? How are the children?'

‘We're just fine,' came the answer quickly. ‘How are you?'