City of Shadows (57 page)

Anna unclasped her hands, to tap her mouth thoughtfully. “I get this right. I tell no one before. And you will see why I survive, why I survive always, no matter what you do. I, yes, I stand behind Mama’s chair, and Olga, Tatiana . . . yes, that’s right, all four of us girls in a line behind Mama. And Dr. Botkin and Trupp, they are to our left, I think. Kharitonov and Demidova stand together.”

Anna smiled. “Demidova is clutching the pillow with the jewels, tight, so tight I think, Oh, no, they will suspect.”

She stopped smiling, her eyes widening.

“Yurovsky is coming back. Behind him come men with guns, all the guards, all with guns. Even then I think they are the guards for our jour
ney. But Yurovsky says, ‘Your relatives have try to save you. Now we must shoot you.’ And he shoots Papa as he try to stand up, straight in the head. And then all is shooting, shooting and noisy.”

Slowly, Anna’s hands went to her ears to cover them.

“Mama falls forward ...plop, like that. I do not see what happen to Olga and Tatiana and Marie. The bullets hit my chest, and I fall back— oh, such pain; even still my breasts are marked with scars where the jewels push into my skin. But is Demidova I see, she is running around and screaming, and the bullets going puff into the pillow and feathers coming out, and they are chasing after, poking her with bayonets. And
Jemmy is barking, and he stops, and it is quiet, but I think I hear Alexei

moan once before it is quiet again.”

It was quiet in the forest, too, except for the hum of the Audi’s engine.

Anna took her hands from her ears; she held them out as if she were displaying stigmata. “So they kill me,” she said. “But I do not die. I do not die in the House of Special Purpose. What happened, I do not know. Maybe one of the guards still is loyal to us. Maybe he sees me alive and pushes me off the cart that takes my family away. When I am better, I am with Gypsies. They find the jewels, perhaps. They do not kill me either.”

She smiled across the grave at Busse. “I do not die now if you shoot me. Always you try to kill me, always I do not die. I am the grand duchess Anastasia.”

Busse was staring at her, mesmerized. “Yes,” he said. Then he said, “Yes, Your Imperial Highness.”

Anna closed her eyes. “That is good,” she said, and fell against Schmidt. He held her up. Froth was coming out of her mouth.

“What is it?” Busse demanded.

“She’s fainted,” Schmidt said, trying to put his jacket around Anna’s shoulders as she flopped against him.

“She
is
Anastasia,” Busse said in awe. “You heard her.”

“Yes,” Schmidt said, He picked Anna up in his arms and edged Es
ther back so that he stood in front of her on the lip of the grave.

Busse still pointed the gun at them, but he was flustered. He shifted his spectacles.

In the pit the storm trooper stared across at Anna, bewildered, then back up at Busse. His young face was streaked with dirt across his cheek where he’d wiped off perspiration.

Busse made up his mind. When the stormtrooper looked up again, he shot him through the forehead. The boy fell back against the side of the pit, eyes open, his head resting against Günsche’s dangling hand.

Schmidt felt Esther flinch.

“About the Anastasia file,” Schmidt said. His voice intruded on the air, breaking an echo left by the pistol fire.

“Carry Her Highness to the car,” Busse said. “Carefully. Then come back. The Jewess stays where she is.”

Schmidt shook his head, as much to clear it as anything. He’d un
derestimated Busse—or overestimated him, he didn’t know which. Even Busse, clinical, Nazi Busse, wasn’t proof against fairy tales. He’d made up his mind to be Anastasia’s knight, her savior. Anna, laid at Hitler’s feet. Here is the true, proven grand duchess, my Führer, res
cued from death at the hands of one of Röhm’s killers.

It would still work.

“About the file . . .”

“Quiet about the file,” Busse said. He gestured toward the car. He had Günsche’s gun in his hand—they were going to be shot with Gün-sche’s bullets. “I do not need it. It is irrelevant now. Inconvenient, per
haps, because of the baby, but we shall deny that. It was mere Communist propaganda to blacken her name.”

He was thinking on his feet, Schmidt saw, planning. Nothing was going to mar the image of the unsullied Sleeping Beauty awakened by a Nazi kiss—certainly not the two witnesses, Schmidt and Esther, who could attest to the inconveniences the file contained. They would dis
appear.

“She is the grand duchess without a doubt,” Busse said. “Only one person could know what she knew. We shall put her on the radio, and everyone will hear her. That was the truth we heard.”

“Yes,” Schmidt said, “it was. But you should have read the file more closely.”

“I’m taking her back to the Führer,” Busse said. “Get her into the car.”

Schmidt hoisted Anna so that her head was against his shoulder; he was finding her heavy now, but Busse couldn’t shoot him without hit
ting his Anastasia, and both their bodies were protecting Esther be
hind him.

“There’s a list in that file,” Schmidt said. “Men who were interviewed about Yusupov on the night of Natalya Tchichagova’s murder. You re
member? In 1923? Prince Yusupov? Günsche put Yusupov’s name on the note that took Natalya to her death.”

“What?
What?
” Busse was becoming angry. “Put Her Highness in the car. I order you.”

“These men had been with Yusupov at a nightclub called the Pink Parasol. You wouldn’t know it—it’s a homosexual club.”

Busse began to move, walking along the edge of the grave, coming around it to get behind Schmidt, to shoot Esther.

“They were brought in for questioning, and they gave Yusupov an al
ibi,” Schmidt said, watching him. “One of them was called Braun. Com
mon enough name. On the list, he’s down as Braun, E. Just the initial. But I interviewed him—he was still in his ball gown.”

Busse stopped still.

“And I remember his Christian name,” Schmidt said. “I have a mem
ory for detail, and anyway it was unusual. It was Einwen. Einwen Braun, same name as the fellow Hitler has just promoted to some office or another.”

He watched Busse’s Adam’s apple move in his throat.

“I remember the address, too,” he said. “It’s in the file. I’m surprised you didn’t notice it, but the list’s a long one, so perhaps you overlooked it. E. Braun lived in Mariendorf. Your brother-in-law ever live in Mariendorf, Busse?”

There was silence.

“Still does?” Schmidt asked gently. “Well, you know what these news
papermen are like; when they get the file—and they will—they might notice the name of an E. Braun living in Mariendorf and wonder if it’s got any connection with
the
Einwen Braun and look him up. He’s got a record, Busse. I remember that too. Just one offense—soliciting in a men’s lavatory.”

He waited. Busse didn’t say anything.

“The offer still holds,” Schmidt said. “You get the only remaining copy of the file. Fräulein Solomonova and I go free.”

We’re going to stand here forever, he thought. We’re in some ob
scene enchantment.

Busse lowered the Luger. He twitched his spectacles. “We’d better go,” he said. “Someone may have heard the shots.”

And I will believe in You and all Your works forever.

“After you,” Schmidt told him. Carrying Anna, he followed Busse and Esther to the Audi.

As he passed the grave, he looked down to where Günsche lay, his hand hanging down against the head of the dead stormtrooper.

Nazi justice. No trial for him, no public acknowledgment of the mon
ster he’d been. Hannelore’s death, Natalya’s, all of his victims’—mere cases moldering in the unsolved section of the Records Department. Obliterating dirt would be shoveled on top of where he lay. Long live the law of the Luger.

Busse had got himself in hand. “Put Her Highness in the back,” he said, opening the Audi’s rear door for them. “Carefully.”

Schmidt lowered Anna onto the seat. Her eyes were closed, and she was moaning. He wiped her mouth gently with his shirtsleeve.

“You.” Busse pointed the gun at Esther. “Reverse and go up the track. Turn right at the top. You”—this was to Schmidt—“in the front with her.” He got in beside Anna.

They drove to where they’d left the Mercedes. “Same order as be
fore,” Busse said. “The Jewess drives.”

“Her name is Fräulein Solomonova,” Schmidt said. “Use it.”

They changed cars, leaving Günsche’s Audi on the edge of the forest.

Esther started the Mercedes, put it smoothly into gear, reversed, and they were on the road. Her hands were white on the wheel. Schmidt touched them. “All over now,” he lied.

She nodded.

“How is this to be worked?” Busse asked from the rear seat.

“I’m thinking,” Schmidt told him.

The Luger touched the back of his neck. “Think well.”

“Bismarck Allee,” Schmidt told Esther.

“The file’s not there,” Busse said.

“Bismarck Allee,” Schmidt said again.

After that nobody spoke. Esther drove well, going at a medium pace. Schmidt tried to get her to look at him, but she might have been a wooden statue with its eyes fixed on the road. They could hear Anna muttering in the back and Busse trying to comfort her.

As soon as they were passing streetlights, Schmidt looked at his watch. It said eight-fifteen. “What’s the time?” he asked Busse. “My watch has stopped.”

Busse pulled back the edge of his left-hand glove. “Twenty hours fifteen.”

Just an hour and a half since he’d been in the Alex, burning files. Ninety minutes. It had felt like a lifetime. For two men back there, it had been.

“Still got time to join the parade,” he said.

Busse said nothing.

The sky had cleared, and a hard-edged moon showed busy streets on which the main trend seemed to be eastward, toward the West End.

They pulled up in front of number 29. Schmidt and Busse supported Anna while Esther opened the door and helped her upstairs. She was beginning to come around. They steered her to the sofa, and she lay down, closing her eyes.

The flat was warm and tidy, and Esther stood in the middle of it as if seeing it for the first time. The phone still dangled from its wire.

Schmidt said, “Hot drinks all around, I think,” and moved to the kitchen.

Busse stopped him. “Where is the file?”

“With a friend, I told you.”

Busse said, “Come here, Fräulein.” The gun pointed at Esther. He took her by the arm and walked her to the phone table and the hard-backed chair beside it. “Sit.” He picked up the receiver and held it out to Schmidt. “Tell your friend to bring it here.” The gun was against Es-ther’s cheek.

“I want your word that when you’ve got it, she and I can go free,” Schmidt said. “There’s a flight from Tempelhof we need to catch.”

“Of course.”

God, how that man did need that file. It would be in flames seconds after he got it. Whether he’d known about his brother-in-law or hadn’t, it
really
wasn’t information he wanted to reach Hitler’s ears.

It would be handy to have it suppressed in any case. Hitler could have his pristine grand duchess. Busse, her rescuer, could have his re
ward. Nobody need know anything else, and the dance could go on.

Schmidt said, “You won’t mind if I make sure of that.” He went to the other side of the table and turned the phone around so that its dial was out of Busse’s view. He dialed. Let him be in, God. Don’t let him be out.

Joe Wolff’s voice, which always reminded him of richly squashing fruit, said, “Hello?”

“It’s Siegfried.”

“Siegfried, my son. How are you? You only just caught me. I was thinking I’d go watch the parade.”

“You can. But I’m in trouble, and I need a favor.”

“Trouble?” A thousand years of anxiety came over the line.

“That folder I gave you. Have you still got it?”

“Yes, yes, it’s on top of Minna’s wardrobe. Still wrapped up. You want I should get it?”

“Yes. I need you to take it to the West End—hold on a minute.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and looked toward Busse. “Pick a hotel, any hotel.”

“Tell him to bring it here,” Busse said. He had hold of Esther’s hair, pulling her head back so that her throat was exposed to the gun barrel.

“It’s packed up and addressed to my favorite newspaper. You want me to tell him to mail it? Pick a bloody hotel.”

“The Kaiserhof.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure my friend’s going to walk into a nest of Nazis. Pick another one.”

“The Esplanade.”

Nice and central. He said, “Take the folder to the Esplanade. You know it?”

“Of course I know. Bit pricey, but Minna and I brought Ikey to tea there in the palm court on his twelfth birthday. He was very taken by the éclairs, I remember.”