Legacy of Sorrows (13 page)

‘Kuller, the reception starts at seven-thirty and it's now 6pm. I reckon we have at least an hour to see this through and walk out the door. No more stalling - what's it going to be?' As a final persuader, I asked Italo to place his gun against Kuller's chest. ‘It makes no difference to us what you choose just so long as you are dead,' Italo said, bending over his intended victim, and blowing him a mock kiss, ‘We will make it look like a lovers' quarrel.'

The overpowering smell of urine filled the room as Kuller wet himself and began to shout out for help. We had already discussed what to do if he tried to alert his friends by shouting. Italo pulled a silk handkerchief from his jacket pocket like some stage magician and stuffed it into Kuller's mouth. The room fell silent again. ‘I'm going to count to ten and then my friend is going to shoot. Bra and panties or your brains on the bed. One…two…three…four…five…' Kuller became very agitated and was trying to speak out. I pulled the scarf out from his mouth and he said, gasping for air, ‘I'll do it. I'll write the note and take the temple shot.' ‘When I let you up Kuller, if you try anything funny I will shoot you down.' Italo said as he bent over to help him get to a sitting position. I watched carefully, and covered him from a distance with my gun.

Italo pulled his jacket off and handed him a writing pad and pen. ‘Just write what I tell you to write and remember, I read German.'

Reluctantly, under instruction Kuller wrote:

Dear Gertrude and my dear comrades,

All these years I have been living a lie and I can't go on any more. I have decided to take my own life tonight with the comfort of knowing that all my old comrades are in this hotel with me.

What I did on Monte Sole and Sant' Anna was very wrong and I ask forgiveness from God and my family for these deeds.

Please understand.

Hans.

Italo read the letter a few times to make sure that there were no mistakes before he told me it was fine.

We must have taken our eyes off of him for only a second, but for a killer like him, a second was enough. He sprang up from the bed with all the agility of an acrobat and kicked out with his left foot giving me a heavy blow to the head. As I went down I heard the sound of Italo's gun firing. I lay there on the floor stunned for a few moments until my head cleared.

As I got up, the first thing I saw was the horrific bloody mess splattered all over the headboard that reached as far as the window curtains. Italo was standing with the gun still in his hand staring at Kuller's dead body. ‘I was lucky' Italo said, turning to face me. ‘I managed to press the gun against his temple before firing. It should look like a suicide.'

I took in Italo's appearance. He had blood and gore all over his shirt. I thought for a moment before saying to him ‘Italo, go into the bathroom and clean yourself up. Wrap your shirt up in a towel and we'll take it away. Put on one of Kuller's, your both of a similar size.'

I looked again at the dead body of the man I had sought for all these years. I wish I could say that I felt relief or some other similar emotion but the truth was I felt nothing, no emotion whatsoever. It was as if we had just killed another animal on one of our woodland hunts. Perhaps in my mind he wasn't human after all; perhaps I saw him only as a wild dangerous animal that needed put down. I continued staring at Kuller when there was a knock on the door that brought me out of my contemplative state.

A soft voice called out in Italian, ‘Bruno, Bruno Verdi, open the door.' Italo came out of the bathroom with his gun in his hand. We looked at each other mystified as to who was there. I said to Italo, ‘Carry on and get cleaned up. We don't have much time before they'll come looking for him. I'll handle the door.' The voice then said ‘Bruno, we used to call you
Naso
, open the door.'

Now I was really spooked. The only people who used my childhood nickname were people who lived on the mountain and knew me from my childhood.

I took the gun from Italo and crossed to the door. Slowly I opened it, and standing there, much to my surprise, were the elderly Italian couple I had seen downstairs.

The old gentleman smiled at me and said, ‘You had better ask us in Bruno, the sound of the gun shot was quite loud and I don't think we should be standing out here in the corridor.'

I stood back and let them enter the room. The first thing they saw was the dead body of Kuller lying sprawled out on the bed with his brains blown out. I had my gun levelled at the couple, not sure of what to do next when the old man spoke.

‘You won't remember me Bruno, but I remember you. I recognised you straight away in the hotel lobby. My name is Graziano Sambucci. My father, who was also called Graziano, ran the vegetable stall in Monzuno and used to pay your father for cobbling his shoes with his produce.' I suddenly remembered him. He was in his late thirties when the massacre took place. ‘What are you doing here, Graziano? I don't understand.'

Graziano looked again at the dead body on the bed and said, ‘We came to kill him. My wife, Ivana, and I have waited all these years for revenge and then we saw him on the television. We made plans to come here and kill him. We have taken the room next door to him, and we thought we would kill him tonight after the reception.'

‘How did you plan to do it?'

He opened his jacket to show a large stiletto shaped knife in a sheath attached to his belt. ‘This is razor sharp - it doesn't take any strength at all to use it.'

At this point Italo came out of the bathroom, all cleaned up from any blood stains and wearing a fresh shirt. ‘Italo, this is Graziano and his wife Ivana, they lived on the mountain and they also escaped the massacre.' It was a weird way to greet anyone, with a dead body lying on the bed and lots of blood, clearly visible from where we were standing, sprayed around him.

Graziano raised his hand for silence, as we were all talking at once. ‘Perhaps we should leave here immediately as some of Kuller's friends may come up here at any moment. We have the room next door, so we should all go there and discuss this further.' We all agreed. I walked over to the bed and tidied up around Kuller. I put the note he had written on his chest and the gun in his hand, and then left with the others. I couldn't quite believe that we were all acting so matter-of-factly with a murdered body on the bed with his brains all over the place.

As I closed the door to Kuller's room I closed the door to a lifetime of hatred, anguish and revenge. The strange thing was I still felt no elation over his death, in fact I felt nothing. It was as if we had just killed a fly on the wall and walked out without giving it a second thought.

Once in Graziano's room we all sat down and tried to relax a little. Graziano poured us all a glass of red wine from a bottle he had brought with him. After taking a sip he looked at me, smiled, then said, ‘I remember you well, Bruno. They used to call you “
naso
” because of your Semitic features. Your family was the only Jewish family on the mountain, and was very well respected. Your uncle Luigi was not only a friend to me, but as a Rabbi, I confided in him the things that troubled me rather than confide them to the Priest. I heard what happened to your family and until today I believed that you were killed as well.' He paused for a second to take another sip of wine. ‘It was a shock to see you in the hotel lobby. I didn't speak to you then because I didn't know why you were there. You could have been visiting or just sightseeing, but when I stood outside Kuller's room I heard your conversation through the door, and then I heard the shot. I knew for sure then.'

‘How did you survive the massacre?' I asked them.

Ivana spoke for the first time. ‘When the Germans came that day, we were out walking together in the hills. My father-in-law was looking after our two children at home. We heard the sound of shooting and loud screams coming from Monzuno and we ran back to see what had happened. We were too late. The SS were just leaving our house. The bodies of our children and old Graziano were lying dead in the courtyard. We hid in the long grass and watched them loot our house before setting it on fire. The leader was a tall blonde SS sergeant who we found out many years later was Kuller. We were more fortunate than you Bruno, my brother in law and his daughter were in Bologna when it happened, so we thank God they were spared.'

Graziano interrupted her. ‘We swore to find him and kill him. We also thought that we were the only survivors of the slaughter, until today. That is probably the reason why I love my niece like a daughter. She is the last of my blood.'

I stood up and embraced them both. We were all hugging each other when we heard the sound of loud banging on Kuller's bedroom door. This was followed by someone shouting, ‘Hans, Hans, open the door. It's Werner.'

He continued knocking and shouting for a while and then the clamour stopped.

Italo said, ‘He's probably gone to report to reception. He must have checked if Kuller had picked up his key. Someone will be up shortly to open the door, so I think we should get our story straight before the Police visit us.'

I said to Graziano and his wife, ‘Where do you live now?'

‘Bologna, a small apartment on Via Venezia.'

‘When the police ask us what we are doing here, tell them that we know each other from way back and that we all live in Bologna now. Italo and I are here sightseeing and you have come for a city break as you have never been before. We all decided to meet up at this hotel. That should be enough to satisfy them.'

I could hear the rustle of a key in Kuller's door and the sound of raised voices in his room. Soon, in the distance, I could hear the noise of police sirens coming ever closer. Ivana's face was very white. She was obviously feeling the strain. Graziano seemed to take it all in his stride and showed no visible signs of anxiety as he refilled our wine glasses. Italo and I were surprisingly calm. I said to Italo, ‘Where's the shirt with the blood on it?'

‘I've still got it here in the towel.'

Graziano stood up and pulled out a suitcase from underneath the bed. ‘Put it in here, Italo, beside my dirty clothes. We can dispose of it later.'

Ivana walked over to the television and switched it on. ‘This seems more natural for a group drinking wine to have some background music.' She searched for a radio station. The sound of soft jazz came from the set. We could have left the hotel but that would have seemed very suspicious to have booked in and then vanished. No, this was probably the best approach, so long as we kept our nerve.

After about an hour there was a knock on the door. Graziano rose to open it. Standing there was a Police Officer. ‘I'm sorry to disturb you, sir but could I take a few minutes of your time?'

Graziano smiled, and said in accented German, ‘I'm sorry, I don't speak German, only Italian.' The Police Officer nodded in understanding. ‘Does anyone here speak some German?' Italo stood up. ‘I speak a little, Officer. Can I help you?'

The Officer said, ‘May I come into the room?'

Italo said, ‘Of course, Officer' and he opened the door wider.

The Officer said, ‘There has been an incident in the room next to yours. Someone is dead. Did anyone from your group hear anything unusual such as a loud bang, like a gunshot?'

Italo translated what the Officer had said. We all exhibited the appropriate shocked expressions and said the right things. Italo gave a sigh and said, ‘I'm sorry officer; we've all been sitting here for much of the afternoon just talking and drinking some wine. We didn't hear anything unusual. I'm sorry we can't help you.'

The Officer once again nodded his head in understanding. ‘I will need to take your names and addresses for the record, just a formality, you understand.' We gave him our addresses in Bologna and he then left us alone.

Italo was quite sure that would be the end of our involvement. I said that I felt the police and the coroner should give a verdict of suicide without much of a problem as all the indications for that were present, such as powder burns to the temple area, suicide note and no signs of a forced entry or a struggle.

Graziano was acting as if he was preoccupied with something else on his mind. I asked him if anything was wrong. He looked at me and said, ‘What would you say if I told you that there will be more of these Nazis dead before the night is out?'

Italo stood up and said, ‘Bruno, I don't want to be involved in anything else, our work here is finished, come, it's time to leave.'

Ivana said, ‘If you leave the hotel now it will look suspicious and the police will track you down and arrest you for mass murder.'

I was stunned at these comments.
What have they done? Have they poisoned the food?
My mind was racing as it quickly scanned the possibilities. Graziano calmly raised his hand above the loud babble of voices asking questions and demanding answers. ‘Let me explain what we have done. We have planted four hand grenades attached to a mechanical device and timer in each of the four corners of the Ballroom. When the reception is at its height they will detonate and hopefully kill as many of them as possible. At the appointed time the device will pull out the rings and there will be synchronised explosions.'