The Grave of Truth (18 page)

His second wife was fifteen years younger, a secretary in the Customs and Excise; she knew nothing about his past. She accepted him as a returned German prisoner of war, and he married her within a year of meeting her. He loved her and she was an excellent wife. He liked her gay spirits; they made him feel young again. When she gave birth to Beatrix, he was so overcome with happiness and gratitude that he felt tempted to confide his past in her. But fortunately he resisted the temptation. The less was known about his capture in Berlin and what followed afterwards, the safer he would be. He gave himself up to his happy life and his infant daughter, and began to forget about the old days. Sometimes his memory was rudely jogged. Newspaper articles, books, discussions on TV.… They wouldn't let the past die. The Jews were hunting for his old comrades. He read of the trial and execution of Adolf Eichmann; there were other trials in West Germany of men he had known and served with. He was safe, but only just. His association with Himmler was known, but he had been purely an administrator; he had never been involved in the camps, or the liquidation of Jews in Russia. He had served his sentence in the snow-white hell of Northern Siberia, and he was left alone.

When he received the telephone call warning him about a visit from the police and an agent from the CIA, he had felt sick with apprehension. He couldn't eat his breakfast, and he snapped irritably at his innocent wife. He kissed Beatrix good-bye with extra tenderness and wondered what he could do, how he could avoid seeing anyone.

He remembered there was someone else he had to warn, and he did so from his office; he was trying to decide whether to pick up his wife and daughter and take the first train to her grandparents in Bavaria, when his secretary announced that a man was in the outer office demanding to see him, and refusing to give his name. Mühlhauser went grey with fear. He came out, and there was a man in a belted mackintosh and a brown felt hat, his hands stuck aggressively into his pockets. Mühlhauser had never seen him before. ‘Yes? What can I do for you?' He heard the tremor in his own voice. ‘You can go, Fräulein Huber.'

He was a young man, and suddenly he took off his hat. ‘I'm afraid I have bad news for you, Herr Mühlhauser,' he said. ‘I'm from the police. Your daughter had an accident at school this morning. You'd better come with me.' Mühlhauser gave a choked cry of anguish. He didn't ask to see the man's identity; he followed him blindly out of the building and down into the street. He got into the car which was waiting, and was taken to a house in the suburbs.

They let him see Beatrix through a crack in the door. She was sitting reading a comic book. There was a man in the room; Mühlhauser could just see his trouser legs. Then the door closed and he was facing the two men who had abducted him and a third who was sitting in an armchair. It was an unusual setting for kidnap and interrogation. The room was on the ground floor, and it was an ordinary sitting room, with a sofa and chairs, a TV set, ornaments and a plant in bloom on the table. Mühlhauser tried to swallow; fear had dried up the saliva in his mouth and he couldn't do it. The young man who had come to his office was standing a few feet away, with a gun pointing at him. The gun moved whenever Mühlhauser did. Albert Kramer looked up at him; he leaned forward in the armchair.

‘We want some questions answered,' he said. Mühlhauser nodded. They hadn't hurt him or threatened him.

‘Why is Beatrix … why have you—' he stammered and stopped. Kramer's eyes were as fixed and malevolent as a snake's, about to strike. Mühlhauser knew what it meant when a man looked like that.

‘Your child hasn't been hurt, or frightened. And she won't be, if you tell the truth.' Kramer paused deliberately. When he spoke again his voice was empty of emotion. ‘If you don't co-operate, you'll never see her again. We won't do anything to you, Gunther Mühlhauser. We will kill Beatrix instead. Sit down.'

Mühlhauser felt his legs giving way. A tide of blind fury swept over him, and then receded before an even wilder panic. He knew the blond man in the chair meant what he said. Beatrix.…

‘Let her go,' he said. ‘I beg of you, let her go home. I'll do anything you want.'

‘She goes home with you, if we're satisfied.' Kramer answered. ‘Or not at all.'

Mühlhauser bowed his head. ‘What do you want from me?'

‘You were in the Bunker at the end, weren't you?' Mühlhauser sensed the other two men, the one with the gun and the driver, leaning closer towards him.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I was captured; I spent fifteen years in a Soviet labour camp.'

‘We know that,' Kramer said. ‘We looked after you, when you came home. You must have realized that?'

‘I suspected,' Mühlhauser muttered. ‘I was very grateful.' Now he knew whom he was facing. Certainly they would kill Beatrix.

‘Why didn't they hang you, Mühlhauser? They hanged or shot everyone in the SS. Why not you?'

‘I was an administrator,' Mühlhauser said. ‘I had no part in the Einsatzgruppen, or the selection of foreign labour.… I hadn't been involved in action against Russian troops or civilians. You know all this already. I don't understand what you want from me.…'

‘The truth,' Kramer said. ‘I want you to tell me what you told the Russians, that they let you live. Because you bought your life, didn't you, Mühlhauser? You saved your neck by betraying something to them. What was it?'

The room was very quiet; Kramer sat motionless, waiting. A car droned past the house. They'll kill me, Mühlhauser thought. But I don't care. So long as they let Beatrix go.… He raised his head slowly and squared his shoulders. He had betrayed his sacred oath. ‘Blood and Honour'—the words floated through his mind. He wasn't afraid for himself.

He spoke to Kramer. ‘I told them about the Führer's son.'

Minna placed one hand over the telephone and spoke to Max.

‘It's Heinrich Holler,' she said. ‘He wants to come and see me this afternoon.'

‘We're going to Munich,' Max reminded her.

She spoke into the phone. ‘I was going away this morning,' she said. ‘Is it very urgent, Herr Holler? I see. Yes, of course I'll postpone it. At three o'clock then. Good-bye.'

Max put down the overnight case. The car was outside, waiting to take them to the airport.

‘We can go this evening,' he said. ‘I'd like to meet him. If you don't mind.'

‘It won't be up to me,' Minna answered. ‘He may want to talk to me alone, or he may talk to you too. You can be sure he knows you're staying here.'

Max put the cases in a corner; she had gone into the sitting room. He hesitated; a few hours earlier they had made love with feverish intensity. He knew everything about her body; he had explored it like a map. And he had lost his head completely at one moment and told her that he loved her. She had said nothing. The greater their physical intimacy, the more it disturbed him that he knew even less about her as a person. The woman in his bed was a separate entity from Minna Walther. It was almost impossible to connect the cool, self-contained person that had come down and said good morning to him with the passionate, demanding creature he had held in his arms through the night. He had said he loved her; she had said she hated him and herself.… He had a feeling of emptiness, standing there in the hall. He wanted to go to Munich to be alone with her, away from the house and the bed she had shared with Sigmund Walther. Perhaps then he could break through the barrier which restricted her response to sexuality alone. He went out and put the car into the garage.

He walked round the garden, as it was a beautiful morning, and there was nothing else for him to do. It was colourful with flowers and shrubs. He lit a cigarette and wandered through the paths between the flowerbeds. There was a tennis court and a swimming pool. He could imagine the parties given in the summer, with barbecues and iced drinks. Liberals and journalists and politicians. And Albert Kramer.

He came to the edge of the pool and stopped. His own reflection shivered in the bright blue water. He had a wife and two children. He hardly remembered their existence. He found it difficult to visualize their faces; he couldn't think of their Paris apartment in connection with his home. He should have telephoned Ellie, reassured her and talked to the children. The truth was he didn't want to; his disinclination was stronger than his guilt. He was in love with Minna Walther, that was part of the reason, but not the whole of it. His life pattern was changing even before he met her. The past kept coming up like a boil, plaguing him with the nightmare; his sex life with Ellie was stale, his children irritated him or bored him, and he felt increasingly restless. He didn't dream any more, because he was facing the implications of the dream in real life. He had stopped running away from himself. The time would come when he and Minna would come to terms with their relationship; when she would have to choose between her contempt for her own weakness and her dependence upon him. And he would have to choose too. But first their search had to be concluded. He began to walk back to the house.

Heinrich Holler was ten minutes late; he came in apologizing to Minna. ‘I'm so sorry, but I had to make a call and it took longer than I expected. How are you, Frau Walther? You're looking well.'

Max got up, and stood waiting until Minna introduced him. Holler and he shook hands. ‘Ah, yes,' Holler said. ‘I always read your articles, Herr Steiner. They often tell me things I ought to have known and didn't!' He had a charming smile; he chatted to Minna for a few minutes, accepted a cigarette, and asked Max how long he was staying in Germany. ‘You're writing an article on my friend Sigmund, I believe?' he said. Max didn't look at Minna; he hadn't discussed what he should say with her because, until he met Holler, he hadn't been certain himself. He made up his mind.

‘That's what I'm supposed to be doing,' he said. ‘But in fact I'm looking for the same thing that Sigmund Walther was looking for, and which he tried to tell me about before he died. I want to find Janus.'

Holler examined his cigarette and then glanced at Minna. ‘You've given him access to Sigmund's papers?'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘He knows everything. And he had something very important to contribute.' Holler turned back to Max.

‘I hope you'll confide in me,' he said. He listened without interrupting while Max talked. At the mention of Fegelein's dying words, he looked up quickly, but he said nothing. When Max had finished he let out a deep breath.

‘Thank God I got rid of my American colleague,' he said. ‘He was trying to come with me today. You wouldn't know, of course, but the CIA are also investigating Sigmund's murder. They believe it was Russian-inspired. But they don't know, and I pray they never find out, that he was involved in the search for Janus. They have given that up; there was a lot of activity when we first heard of the child's existence, but there were as many people here who
didn't
want to help the Americans as there were like Sigmund and myself, who felt it was a German problem and should be solved by us.'

‘Why did they stop searching?' Max asked.

‘Because they believed the Russians had found the boy and killed him,' Holler said.

‘And you don't think so?' Max said.

‘No. Because we believe that they're still looking,' Holler answered.

‘And that's why they killed Sigmund.' Minna spoke for the first time. ‘Because he was getting close. But if they were searching for the same person, why not
let
Sigmund find him and then step in!'

‘I've tried answering that point, and I can't,' Holler admitted. ‘Except that they couldn't risk the man's identity coming out; rather than chance Sigmund succeeding and alerting me, they preferred to go on looking themselves.'

‘I keep forgetting,' Max said. ‘We're looking for a grown man.'

‘You have a list of names,' Holler said. ‘How many people have you seen?'

Max hid his surprise. Of course Holler knew about the list. The West Berlin police would have passed it on.

‘Otto Helm, Herbert Schmidt, Josef Franke. We're going down to Munich to try and see Gretl Fegelein this evening.'

‘Helm and Schmidt are dead,' Holler said. ‘The deaths were meant to look like accidents, and if they hadn't been on your list, nobody would have questioned it. But I did, and both men were murdered. So it seems that someone else is treading in your footprints, Herr Steiner. Or else, by some incredible coincidence, these people are on
another
list. So far, nothing has happened to Josef Franke.'

Minna had been standing by the fireplace while they talked; she often leaned against the marble chimneypiece, one foot on the fender. Max remembered the erotic effect of her long thigh under the skirt. She came and sat down facing both of them. She had lost colour, but her composure was like a mask through which no feeling of alarm or even surprise was evident.

‘If nothing
does
happen to him,' she said. ‘Then there is another list. Probably my husband was the first name on it. Max seeing the other two may have been sheer, incredible coincidence, as you said.'

‘And if it is, and someone is killing off the people who were in the Bunker,' Max said slowly, ‘they're going to get to Minna and me, because we've talked to them.'

Holler didn't answer. He changed the subject. ‘What did Franke tell you?'

‘He told me that Fegelein was shot for betraying the future of Germany. He didn't understand the significance of it. But I did. And that led to Günther Mühlhauser, who was Himmler's confidant and liaison with the Bunker. Fegelein told him about Janus. And my guess is, Herr Holler, that Mühlhauser told the secret to the Russians.'

‘Who had it confirmed by the autopsy report on Eva Braun,' Holler said. ‘But if he only knew of the child's existence, that wouldn't be much use to them. He had to know where it was hidden. And he can't have known, because they're still looking … I don't want to depress you, but you won't see Gretl Fegelein.'