Alphabet House (26 page)

‘Yes, I know it’s on unsatisfactorily short notice,
Frau
Rehmann,’ he continued, ‘but the fault is entirely mine. Mr Underwood Scott asked me to convey his request several weeks ago, but I’ve been so busy that it unfortunately slipped my mind. Perhaps you can help me out of my embarrassing situation.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr MacReedy, but I can’t help you. Besides, a visit on a Saturday would be out of the question. We too need the few work breaks we can get.’

The refusal was absolutely final. Some newly arrived bar guests stopped as they were hanging up their coats and looked at Bryan in bewilderment when he slammed down the receiver and began cursing softly in his corner – ready to do battle, yet totally unarmed.

So he would simply have to plunge straight into the lion’s den and see what came out of it. Tomorrow he would present
himself, unannounced, as the Bryan Underwood Scott of whom Mr MacReedy had spoken so warmly. He would have to count on the director being back home in her staff quarters, which according to the floor plan at the entrance were in the west wing of the villa.

It had begun getting dark a long time ago.

The elm trees along the avenue outside the sanatorium had begun swaying in the evening breeze when Kröner’s silhouette finally appeared in the dull glow of the wrought-iron lights in the main entrance.

After joking a bit with a woman in the doorway he took a stoop-shouldered man by the arm and accompanied him down the driveway, chatting quietly. Bryan slipped out of the beer hall and moved behind one of the elms, his heart beating rapidly.

The two men passed by quite close to him. Kröner’s solicitude for the man was almost touching. A member of the family perhaps, but hardly Pock-Face’s father. He wasn’t old enough, even though with his delicate build, lined face and almost snow-white beard, his age seemed indeterminate.

The old man said nothing. He looked ill and tired. To Bryan it seemed he was someone who was beginning to lose heart. So this old man was the reason for Kröner’s visit, and now he was going home with Kröner for the weekend.

Therefore Bryan was surprised to see the two men walk past Kröner’s car and continue beneath the whispering trees towards the centre of town.

For a while the two men chatted quietly beside the tram stop. A crowd of exuberant youths on their way to the first party of the weekend came and stood beside them, shoving each other playfully and laughing so loud that the neighbouring facades’ echo laughed back. Bryan crossed over to the tram stop and stood unnoticed, shielded by the youthful mob. He was less than two foot from Kröner and the old man. They were still talking softly, but the old man’s voice was hoarse and before every other word he tried in vain to clear his throat.

Then the tram came.

Without turning to face his companion Kröner disappeared in the direction from which they had come. Bryan watched Pock-Face for a moment, uncertain what to do, then decided to follow the old man on to the tram. Looking around calmly, the stoop-shouldered man caught sight of an empty seat beside a dark-complexioned young man.

Then he took up position beside the seat without sitting down. Before the next stop he stood directly facing the young man. As they looked at each other the young man’s face changed almost imperceptibly. Then quite without warning, the young man got up and walked quickly past the old man without touching him and down to the rear exit, where he remained standing, breathing heavily.

As the tram car pitched to and fro, the old man sat down heavily on the double seat, clearing his throat a couple of times. He stared out of the window.

They had to change trams once before they reached the old man’s destination in the centre of town, where he finally alighted and strolled on past the brightly lit shop windows.

After pausing a while in front of a pastry boutique’s tempting assortment, the old man succumbed to temptation, giving Bryan time to think rationally. He had to choose between keeping watch in front of Kröner’s house or following the old man. He glanced at his watch. There were still forty-five minutes before Keith Welles was due to report on his visit to Haguenau. From where he stood now, it couldn’t be more than a ten-minute walk to the hotel.

When the old man left the shop, smiling contentedly, Bryan followed him.

The small paper bag dangled from the man’s feeble wrist all the way to Holzmarkt. In the middle of this elegant square he stopped to speak to some other passers-by, then cleared his throat and finally disappeared into a building, timeworn yet attractive, that stood a short ways down a small side street called Luisenstrasse.

Bryan had to wait almost ten minutes before a light was lit on the second floor. An elderly woman went over to the windows to open the curtains. Some big potted plants made this a slow and laborious procedure. The massive building seemed to have only one flat on each floor. They must have been enormous. The rest of the building lay in darkness. In a room with a chandelier that shone coldly and brightly and made him think of an old-fashioned dining room, an elderly man with a beard stepped behind the woman and rested his hands gently on her shoulders.

Bryan looked down at the narrow brass plate between the carved wooden doorframe and the modern door telephone. The plaque simply read: ‘Hermann Müller Invest’.

‘Hey, Laureen, have you seen how that gentleman over there is looking at me?’

‘Who, Bridget? I can’t see anyone.’ Laureen looked around Hotel Colombi’s restaurant. About a hundred people had gathered to enjoy the short interval at the start of the evening as the waiters were preparing to serve dinner. Oblivious to the sound of clanking crockery and the babble of numerous languages, her thoughts were solely about Bryan and whatever had made him take the drastic step of going to Freiburg. Her feeling of unease returned instinctively.

She couldn’t recall ever having felt like this before.

‘Down there! Behind the empty table with the lilac tablecloth. He’s looking at us now. He’s wearing a chequered jacket. Look!’

‘Oh, yes. Now I can see him.’

‘Good-looking man, isn’t he?’

‘Sure, I suppose so.’ Her sister-in-law’s infatuation made Laureen wonder.

‘Good-looking’ wasn’t exactly how she’d describe him.

Laureen’s plan was to get up early the next day, Saturday, and keep a constant watch on Bryan’s hotel until he left it. Then she would sneak after him and see what happened. While the thought of observing her husband unnoticed presented a challenge, Bridget presence presented a real problem. Laureen couldn’t possibly drag her along.

The next morning Laureen got up at a quarter past four. She had slept poorly, twisting and turning in an endless embrace with her pillow in order to get a grasp on her dreams. The bed beside the window was untouched. Laureen could already hear her sister-in-law’s qualms of conscience and her plentiful assurances and pleas for understanding.

Heavy morning dew had appeared overnight. No trams or taxis were in sight and the town was still asleep, so Laureen was
practically the only living soul on the stretch of road between her hotel and Bryan’s.

Nonetheless she didn’t have long to wait long before things began to happen. Had she thought of it before, she would have hidden behind one of the chestnut trees that lined the entranceway to his hotel. From there she could have kept an eye on the recessed hotel portal and at the same time been able to see Bryan, should he decide to walk around the back of the hotel when he left. From where she was standing now on Urachstrasse, if he decided to go behind the hotel he would easily be able to disappear without her noticing.

She had scarcely become conscious of the problem before it was solved. The sound of crunching steps came from the pebbles on the passageway at the entrance and suddenly Bryan was out on the street. Laureen stood quite unprotected. She was the only other human being in the vicinity. Before turning her back to the street, she caught a glimpse of Bryan’s worried face as he turned up his collar. He was far away in his own thoughts and hadn’t spotted her. For him, that was unusual.

Bryan walked briskly downtown. He was elegantly dressed. Laureen tiptoed after him over the cobblestones, praying that more people would soon turn up and that the pavement would become more suitable for high heels.

The figure a hundred yards in front of her seemed younger than the man she’d been living with for nearly a lifetime. He exuded a kind of fitness and youthful detachment that bore witness to the fact that he was presently disconnected from his normal, daily sphere. He seemed like a stranger, wandering through a distant city at this unholy hour when most people were submerged in their deepest sleep.

Some roadwork lay at a Saturday standstill. Bryan strode over it, disregarding the gravel that scuffed up his Lloyd shoes. Hesitating, Laureen lost sight of him. She stared around in
confusion. Trams couldn’t be as noiseless as that, but Bryan was gone.

Oh, hell!
she thought. She felt ridiculous in her amateurish attempt to carry out a task as simple as shadowing the only person on the street – in broad daylight, as well. She’d travelled a long way to achieve this miserable outcome.

Then she made up her mind and began walking more rapidly downtown.

Her relief was enormous when she spotted Bryan striding with measured steps a couple of hundred yards ahead of her. There were more people now, but Laureen felt they were all looking at her as she rushed down the street at breakneck speed with tiny steps, impeded by high heels, aching ankles, her clothing, her age and her being out of shape.

She almost caught up with him near the centre of town. But just as she was beginning to feel she had things under control, he sprinted over to a tram in the middle of the street and jumped in to one of the carriages. Although Laureen had heard the tram coming behind her, she’d paid it no heed.

And now she couldn’t reach it in time.

She stood gaping at the tram as it rumbled away at a leisurely pace.

The tram stopped on the other side of the canal to allow the first early-risers to get off and on. Then she saw Bryan again. He’d only taken the tram for a single stop.

This time she took no notice of the surprised glances. She hitched up her skirt and rushed off.

Laureen had been sure the first time Bryan had turned down a sidestreet, but she had problems the second time. So she had to approach the next few street corners with caution in order to peep around them unnoticed. A couple of pedestrians looked at her, wondering at her strange behaviour.

On the corner of Luisenstrasse and Holzmarkt, Laureen once more caught sight of Bryan. He was leaning against a wall a bit
further down the street, staring up at some big, barred windows. The staid building was classical in style but had been neglected. He was taking his time. And he was smoking.

By now the situation seemed so confusing and meaningless that, had it not been for the fact that Laureen knew her husband so well, she might easily have imagined there was another woman involved.

‘We know nothing about our fellow human beings, and we know nothing about ourselves!’ Laureen could clearly hear her daughter chanting this piece of homespun philosophy. The only problem was that it was nonsense. She’d always known that. It was simply a matter of daring to look at all the facets that make up a person – including oneself – straight in the face.

If you weren’t willing to do that from the start, you were in for a nasty surprise.

Right now Laureen had to accept the possibility that she hadn’t been open enough in how she viewed her husband. Of course Bryan was capable of deceiving her, and he could also behave in ways Laureen knew nothing about. At any rate he’d never stood in front of
her
window for hours on end in the days he’d been courting her.

Still she felt that this was about something else. Something more complicated.

Normally someone like Bryan would always go about things directly when given a specific task.

And now he just stood there, waiting and smoking. Put on the defensive.

Occasionally the noise from the main street wafted down on the morning breeze. After much deliberation Laureen left her post. She had to be better equipped if she wanted to continue shadowing Bryan. And that meant different clothes and shoes. It seemed very unlikely that he had any intention of moving for quite a while.

It was only a few hundred paces down to the main street.

Having put on her newly purchased jeans, she noticed a pair of trainers in one of the special-offer boxes that littered the main entrance of the department store. Just as she was putting them on she saw her husband walk by on the opposite pavement.

Their glances met superficially. Laureen bit her lower lip and was just about to wave at him self-consciously like an awkward schoolgirl when he looked away and walked on.

He hadn’t registered anything.

It was not until she reached the ring road that she was close enough to him again to feel sure he wouldn’t slip away. He stopped in the middle of the pedestrian bridge and looked towards the park on the opposite side. The Stadtpark, Laureen thought. She put down her huge plastic bag containing her skirt and coat and laced up her shoes. They were comfortable and they supported her ankles, but they were new. Before the end of the day her toes would be studded with blisters.

And then Bryan caught sight of the woman.

He was beginning to freeze.

Even though it was yet another morning with clear skies and late summer temperatures, the street was like an icy, windswept sluice.

Bryan had been in a kind of a dream for a couple of hours, trying to get a grip on the situation.

His phone conversation with Keith Welles the evening before had been a terrible disappointment. The Gerhart Peuckert he had seen in Haguenau was not James. If Welles had possessed sufficient presence of mind from the start, he would have investigated the man’s age before taking the trouble to travel to France. When he finally reached his goal, a single glance at the patient had been sufficient. The Gerhart Peuckert in Haguenau was completely grey-haired and over seventy. With eyes that were brown and lively. It was a glaring mistake that had set back their investigation a whole day.

Now it was Saturday and Bryan was sure Welles wouldn’t get much further. So from now on it was up to him.

The first item on the day’s agenda was to have been a visit to the sanatorium. But he’d spent a sleepless, restless night, and before he knew it he was standing in front of the old man’s house on Luisenstrasse without really knowing why. It was a pointless exercise. He was merely whiling away the time with occupational therapy. Perhaps he should have picked up the car that he’d left at the sanatorium, or stood on guard outside Kröner’s house instead, but this was how it had turned out.

There had been too many impressions. The sight of the delicate boy in Kröner’s arms had troubled him. What did Bryan actually know about the man? Why was Kröner in Freiburg? What had happened since their time in the hospital?

A string of questions remained unanswered. There had been no sign of life in the old man’s house. The tatty curtains had not
been drawn back. No one came and no one left, and it was now ten o’clock. So he finally decided to leave.

There were still some hours left before he was to visit the sanatorium.

The main street seemed very much itself – the sounds pleasant and comforting. The women had their husbands with them and the shops had opened, luring customers with baskets of special offers and garish, meaningless lighting. It was a typical morning atmosphere.

Colours were clear, pristine and subtle.

In front of the department store, where a couple of days previously he’d watched an immigrant pull shorts over his cheap trousers, a woman was trying on one of the day’s bargains. She stuck her feet hurriedly into a pair of shoes, stamping ritually on the ground to check their fit in much the same way as one judges a new car by kicking the tyre. When she glanced up briefly she reminded him slightly of Laureen. Bryan had often been out shopping with her, sitting in the sultry heat in his overcoat while she tried something on. But this woman was in a hurry. Laureen never was.

He wished it could have been her.

The cathedral at Münsterplatz was a hodgepodge of 300 years of architecture. A Gothic masterpiece that had walled in the joys and sorrows of the town for nearly eight centuries. A unique assembly point for the townspeople and a choice target for the Allied bombers when they were trying to destroy Freiburg’s very spirit and backbone thirty years ago.

This time the town centre seemed smaller. Walking from the marketplace atmosphere of the cathedral square to the hectic Leopoldring and on to Stadtgarten, which leaned comfortably into the ridge of hills to the east, took less than two minutes on foot.

Bryan stopped for a moment to look around as he crossed the bridge above Leopoldring. Whether it was true or not, it felt as
if Freiburg were rejecting him. It wouldn’t have him. It didn’t even notice him. The cathedral bells were chiming perpetually, as they had done in the days he’d been less than fifteen miles away, fighting to preserve his sanity and his life.

Now it bore the message of peace.

People passed by without noticing him. Traffic rumbled busily beneath him. Apart from the tall woman who was leaning against the railing a bit further on and gazing at Schlossberg with a big plastic bag at her feet, he was the only one who hadn’t been engulfed by the town.

Then Bryan heard the sound of brisk steps and heels clicking hard against the surface of the bridge.

The woman was small and erect and wore a beige polo-neck jumper that framed her blonde hair.

This was the second time that day where a woman had reminded him of someone. But in this case the association was hazy.

She was not exactly young. Her clothing – a shiny black raincoat and long skirt of multicoloured India cotton – made it difficult to determine her age.

This was the first thing that caught his eye, and then her rapid pace.

Bryan turned to face her, then studied her carefully.

She was one of those women one always seems to have seen somewhere before. It could have been anywhere: in the bus twenty minutes earlier, at the university twenty years ago, on the cinema screen, in a moment’s glimpse of fascination at a train station. The result was usually the same.

One never found out where, and definitely not who.

After she walked past him, he followed her at a leisurely pace and at a distance. She slowed down when she reached the park. When she passed the gondola ticket-office window she stood still for a moment, watching the noisy, expectant children. The gentle way in which she came to a halt was part of the total picture he was trying to recall. Bryan discarded a number of
possibilities. Then she took a path amongst the trees. It was the third or fourth time Bryan had been there but he didn’t feel he knew the area very well. The woman turned left around the lake and disappeared in the direction of Jakob something-or-other Strasse.

When Bryan got past the trees she was gone. He half ran a bit further until he reached the deserted far corner of the park, then stopped and looked around for her in all directions.

The rustling noise behind him took him by surprise. The woman’s face was livid as she stepped out of the undergrowth at the foot of the trees. She walked straight up to him, sized him up for a moment and came to a halt just a couple of steps in front of him. ‘
Warum folgen Sie mir nach? Haben Sie nichts besser zu tun
?’ she said.

But Bryan didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

Before him stood Petra.

For a moment he thought he was going to faint.

‘I’m sorry!’ he said. She was startled to hear his English. For a couple of seconds he stopped breathing and his pulse almost disappeared. The blood drained from his face, leaving his skin pallid. He swallowed a number of times in order to stave off a sudden feeling of nausea.

She was different, but her troubled face was painfully unchanged. It was precisely the small, fine characteristics and movements that never changed. The hard life that had apparently worn her out and turned her into an ordinary middle-aged woman had not been able to remove these, in spite of everything.

What an incredible coincidence. Cold shivers ran down his spine. The past became all too present as a totality of repressed impressions was reconstructed with unbelievable precision. Suddenly he could even remember her voice.

‘Well, shall we call it a day?’ she said. She turned on her heel without waiting for an answer and strode rapidly away.

It slipped out before he could think: ‘Petra!’ he called out softly.

The woman stopped in midstep.

Her face displayed disbelief as she faced him again. ‘Who are you? How do you know my name? Tell me.’ She studied him closely. For a long while and in silence.

Bryan’s pulse was hammering with excitement. Here was someone who presumably might be able to unveil James’ fate.

The woman frowned slightly as if a thought had struck her, only to shake her head dismissively. ‘I don’t know any Englishmen. So I don’t know you, either. Are you going to give me an explanation?’

‘You recognise me, I can tell!’

‘I may have seen you before, yes. But I’ve seen so many people. I don’t know any English people, in any case.’

‘Look at me, Petra! You know me, but it’s been many years since you last saw me. You’ve never heard me speak. Besides, I speak English because I
am
English. You just didn’t know it at the time.’ For every word Bryan uttered the woman’s face became more naked and recognisable. Her skin colour showed signs of growing agitation. ‘I haven’t come in order to annoy you, Petra, believe me! I had no idea you were still here, in Freiburg. It was a coincidence that I saw you up on the bridge. I didn’t recognise you straight away, either. You merely seemed familiar. It made me curious.’

‘Who are you? Where have did we meet?’ She took a step backwards as though the truth might be more than she could bear.

‘In the SS hospital. Here in Freiburg. I was a patient there in 1944. You knew me under the name of Arno von der Leyen.’

If Bryan hadn’t sprung forward, she would have fallen. Halfway to the ground she worked herself free of his grasp and staggered backwards. She scanned him briefly from top to toe and almost collapsed again. She put her hand to her breast, taking deep gasps of breath.

‘I’m sorry! I didn’t want to frighten you.’ Bryan looked at her, spellbound at the coincidence, and let her calm down a bit. ‘I’ve
come to Freiburg to find Gerhart Peuckert. Can you help me?’ Bryan spread out his arms. The air between them was almost palpable.

‘Gerhart Peuckert?’ She took a final deep breath and then collected herself for a moment as she looked down at the ground. When their eyes met again she had a bit more colour in her cheeks. ‘Gerhart Peuckert, you say? I believe he is dead.’