The Eighth Dwarf (7 page)

Bodden took a deep breath, scuttled out of the trees and across the path, and slipped into the canal with a small splash. Christ, it was cold! He heard the Russian patrol shout Halt. How the hell do you halt when you're swimming? he wondered. They were supposed to shout it three times, for the benefit of anyone who might be listening—for the British especially; but a lot of the Russians were dumb bastards, farm boys who might not be able to count that high. So Bodden took a deep breath and dived underwater just as the first rifle cracked.

When he came up, they were still shooting at him—well, almost at him. A bullet smacked into the water less than a meter away, far less, and Bodden dived under again. A show-off, he thought as he used a breaststroke to swim the last few meters. One of them had to be a show-off.

When he came up again, he saw that he had come up right where he had wanted to—not far from the three German fishermen, who stared down at him as he treaded water, blowing and sputtering.

“Well, what have we got here?” said one of the anglers, a man of about sixty.

“A very wet fish,” Bodden said.

“Maybe we ought to throw him back,” the old man said as he put down his pole. The other two men laughed. They were old too, Bodden saw; somewhere in their late sixties.

The first old man came over to where Bodden still treaded water. He knelt down and stretched out his hand. He was a big, still-powerful old man, who barely grunted as he hauled Bodden up and onto the bank of the canal. “There you are, Herr Fish,” the old man said. “Nice and dry.”

“Thanks,” Bodden said. “Thanks very much.”

The old man shrugged. “It was nothing,” he said, and went back and picked up his pole.

Across the canal, the three Russian soldiers were yelling at Bodden. He grinned and yelled back at them in Russian.

“What did you tell them, Herr Fish?” asked the old man who had dragged him out of the canal.

“I told them what their mothers do with the pigs.”

“You speak Russian?”

“Just enough to tell them that.”

The old man nodded. “Somebody should.”

Bodden looked around. There was no one in sight except the three old fishermen—and the Russians, of course, but they didn't count. He took off his shoes first. Then he removed his knapsack and his wet shirt and squeezed the water out of the shirt. The three old men looked away politely while Bodden changed into the dry clothes.

When dressed, Bodden went over and squatted down by the old man who had hauled him out of the canal. “How far into the center of town?”

“A little over six kilometers—along that path there.” The old man gestured with his head.

“That fish you caught earlier—what was it?”

“You were watching?”

“From over there.”

“It was a carp.”

“That's what I thought it was,” Bodden said. “A carp.”

It took Bodden a little more than an hour and a half to reach the center of Lübeck. Before the war it had had a population of about 100,000, but German refugees from the East and displaced persons from almost everywhere had swollen that figure to nearly double its prewar size. Some of this Bodden learned when he stopped several times to ask directions. The refugees and the DP's flocked to Lübeck because it had been bombed only once, on Palm Sunday in 1942. The raid was supposed to have taken out the docks and the industrial belt, but instead it had wiped out about a third of the old city center.

“Because of Coventry, you know,” one old man told Bodden. “We hit Coventry; they hit us. Retaliation.”

The DP's, Bodden learned, were mostly Poles and Latvians and Estonians, and nobody liked them. Many of them were thieves—clever thieves, one man said, who “lust after bicycles.” Whatever they stole often turned up on the black market which flourished in a small street that was pointed out to Bodden.

The street was called Botcherstrasse, and it seemed to contain not only the town's black market but also its brothels. Because it led from Fischergrube to Beckergrube, which was on his way, Bodden took it. He found that one could buy almost anything for a price in that one short block. There were cigarettes, of course, mostly British, as well as coffee, meat, poultry, fats, and clothing. Bodden even found a pair of shoelaces, which he quickly bought from a Pole who brandished a thick wad of notes. Bodden had looked for two months in Berlin for a pair of laces without luck. The ones that he bought after the customary bargaining seemed new, probably prewar, and he felt lucky to have found them despite their exorbitant price.

From Beckergrube it was only a short walk to the newspaper plant on Königstrasse. It was a crowded, busy street packed with pedestrians and bicycles, and Bodden had to shoulder his way to the entrance of the
Lübecker Post.
The street floor was given over to a job printing shop, and after inquiries Bodden was sent to the director's office on the second floor.

He had to wait, of course. The
Herr Direktor
was a busy man, with many important affairs and responsibilities that commanded his time, but if Bodden would care to wait, it was just possible that he would be granted an audience, although a brief one.

The director's secretary hadn't asked him to sit while he waited, but Bodden sat anyway, in a straight-backed wooden chair. He sat for fifteen minutes, almost without moving, and then crossed his legs. The secretary was a stern-faced woman of about forty, skinny almost to the point of emaciation, who pounded away industriously on an old typewriter. The telephone rang four times while Bodden waited the first fifteen minutes; five times while he waited the second fifteen.

Three minutes later, he was shown into the presence of the director, Dieter Rapke, who, Bodden thought, was too young for the self-important air that he gave himself. At forty-two, Rapke looked like a man whom the war and its aftermath had cheated out of middle-aged plumpness. He had a round head that by now should have been growing some double chins, but wasn't. It gave him a curiously unfinished look. When times get better, Bodden thought, that one will eat.

Rapke peered up at the man who stood before his littered desk. He didn't ask the man to sit down. It didn't occur to him. After a moment he took off his rimless glasses, polished them with a handkerchief, and put them back on.

“So,” Rapke said, “you are a printer.”

“Yes,” Bodden said, “and a good one.”

“From Berlin.”

“From Berlin.”

“There is no work for a printer in Berlin?”

“There is always work for a printer in Berlin provided he doesn't care what he prints. I care.”

“So you came West.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“This morning.”

“Across the canal?”

“Yes.”

“You experienced no difficulty.”

Bodden shrugged. “I got wet. And they shot at me.”

“Your papers.” Rapke held out his hand.

Bodden took out the oilskin pouch, untied the string, and handed his papers over. Rapke studied them methodically. At the third document, he looked up at Bodden again. “So. You were in a camp.”

“Belsen.”

“How long?”

“From 1940 on.”

Rapke went back to his study of the papers. “It must have been hard.”

“It was no holiday.”

“You look fit enough now.”

“I've had a lot of outdoor exercise recently.”

“Doing what?”

“Clearing rubble. There is a lot of it in Berlin. I helped clean some of it up. Before that I worked as a printer for the Russians. But I decided I'd rather clean up rubble.”

Rapke started making notes of some of the information contained in Bodden's papers. “We have nothing here,” he said as he wrote. “Nothing permanent, that is. Only temporary. One of our employees, a printer, was attacked by a band of DP's two days ago. Poles probably. They stole his bicycle. And broke his leg. He's an old man, so I'm not sure when he will return. But if you're interested, you can have his job until he does.”

“I'm interested,” Bodden said.

“Very well,” Rapke said, handing back the papers. “You will report to work at seven tomorrow morning. I have some of your particulars here, but you should give the rest to my secretary, Frau Glimm. And be sure to register with the police.”

“Yes, I will,” Bodden said. “Thank you, Herr Rapke.”

Rapke didn't look up from the notes he was still making. Instead, he said, “Please close the door on your way out”

When Bodden had gone, Rapke reached for the telephone and placed the trunk call himself. It was to a large country house located some fifteen kilometers north and west of Lübeck. A male voice with a British accent answered the phone on the second ring.

“Colonel Whitlock's office; Sergeant Lewis speaking.”

Summoning up what little English he had, Rapke said, “Here is Herr Rapke. I wish with Colonel Whitlock to speak.”

“One moment, please,” Sergeant Lewis said.

The Colonel came on speaking an idiomatic, though strongly accented, German, and Rapke let his breath out. Rapke found speaking English a trying business, one which he did so badly that it made him sweat. He was so grateful to be speaking German that he forgot to elaborate conversational niceties he usually employed when talking to the Colonel.

“He came,” Rapke said. “Early this morning, just as you said.”

“Calls himself Bodden, does he?” the Colonel said.

“Yes. Yes. Bodden. Otto Bodden.”

“And you hired him, of course.”

“Yes, yes, just as you instructed.”

“Good work. Rapke. Perhaps he will even turn out to be a competent printer.”

“Yes, that is to be devoutly wished. Now, is there anything else that I am to do?”

“Nothing,” the Colonel said. “Absolutely nothing. You will treat him exactly as you would treat any other temporary employee. Is that clear?”

“Yes, naturally.”

“And one more thing, Rapke.”

“Yes.”

“Keep your mouth shut. Is that also clear?”

“Yes,” Rapke said. “Most clear.”

After Rapke had hung up, the Colonel asked Sergeant Lewis to have Captain Richards come in. A few moments later Richards came in, filling his pipe, and sat down in a chair before the Colonel's desk. The Colonel watched bleakly as Richards went through the ritual of lighting his pipe. The Colonel didn't mind pipe smoking. He smoked himself, cigarettes; chain-smoked them, in fact. But all that business of filling a pipe and tamping it down and lighting it and then knocking it all out somewhere, it really was a bloody nuisance.

“Rapke called,” Colonel Whitlock said.

The Captain nodded and went on with the lighting of his pipe.

“He's across,” the Colonel said.

The Captain nodded again. “Came across this morning about seven. They even shot at him. Or toward him. Three fishermen were there. They saw it.”

“Rapke hired him.”

“Good. Does he call himself Bodden?”

“Mm. Otto Bodden.”

“I'll let Hamburg know.”

“Yes, do that,” the Colonel said. “And you should ask them how long we might have to keep an eye on this fellow before that major of theirs arrives. What's his name?”

“Baker-Bates. Gilbert Baker-Bates.”

“Coming from America, isn't he?”

“From Mexico, sir.”

“Same thing,” the Colonel said.

7

If the dwarf hadn't got drunk in the French Quarter in New Orleans and stayed that way for two days, and if he hadn't insisted on visiting Monticello in Virginia, and later insisted that Jackson give him a guided tour of the University of Virginia, then they could have made it to Washington in a week instead of the eleven days that it took them. During the tour of the university, Jackson had to listen to Ploscaru lecture learnedly on Thomas Jefferson. The lecture went on so long that they were delayed another day and had to spend the night in Charlottesville.

They arrived in Washington at a little after noon the next day and managed to get two rooms at the Willard. After unpacking and sending his suit out to be pressed, Jackson went down the hall to Ploscaru's room.

The dwarf let Jackson in, went back to the bed, hopped up on it, and sat cross-legged while he examined his four passports. One was French, one was Swiss, one was Canadian, and the last was German. The dwarf tossed that one aside and picked up the one issued by Canada.

“Canadian?” Ploscaru said.

Jackson shook his head and looked around for the bourbon. He found it on the dresser. “What would a Canadian be doing in Germany?” he said as he poured himself a drink.

Ploscaru nodded, put the Canadian passport down, and picked up the Swiss one. “Swiss, I think. A Swiss would have business in Germany. A Swiss would have business anywhere.”

Jackson picked up the Canadian passport, flipped through it with one hand, and tossed it back onto the bed. “If these things are so perfect, why didn't you use one of them to go down to Mexico with me?”

Without looking up from the Swiss passport, Ploscaru said, “Then I would have run into Baker-Bates, wouldn't I've?”

Jackson stared at him for a moment and then grinned. “You knew he was there, didn't you?”

The dwarf only shrugged without looking up.

“God, how you lie, Nick.”

“Not really.”

“You lied about Baker-Bates. You lied about Oppenheimer not speaking English. You lied about his daughter, about her being a spinster.”

“She is.”

“She's not even thirty.”

“In Germany a woman if not married by twenty-five is a spinster.
Eine alte Jungfer.
It's the law, I think. Or was.”

Jackson went over and stood by the window and looked across Fourteenth Street at the National Press Building. A man directly opposite stood at a window and scratched his head. The man's coat was off, his tie was loosened, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up. After a moment, the man quit scratching his head, turned, and sat down at a desk. Jackson wondered if he was a reporter.