The Swiss Courier: A Novel (27 page)

“Meaning . . .”

“Meaning someone needs your expertise. Perform the favor, and you can write yourself a ticket home.”

“Who’s asking?”

“I can’t tell you, but people in the know call him the Big Cheese. From what I hear, he can make just about anything happen in Switzerland. A driver will arrive in Davos sometime tomorrow afternoon, and you’ll be told exactly what’s expected of you. You can take the offer, or you can decide to stay.”

“What about escaping Davos? Isn’t that going to be a problem? I don’t think I’ll be able to wave to the guards as I’m chauffeured out of here, do you?”

“Don’t worry about that. It’s all been arranged.”

Gabi alighted from the BVB #6 tram—painted the same spearmint green as other Basel streetcars—after it rumbled to a stop in front of the Badischer Bahnhof. Although the #6 had taken only fifteen minutes to complete the journey from the Barfüsserplatz downtown depot, Basel’s “other” train station felt as foreign as dirndl and lederhosen to her.

Six years had passed since Gabi had last stepped through the imposing limestone edifice that resembled an elongated Noah’s Ark. She was in high school when her parents took the family via train to the Schloss Neuschwanstein in Bavaria. Gabi chuckled at the schoolgirl memory of begging her parents to visit the fairytale castle after viewing the Disney movie,
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
.

She wished she could recapture those carefree days before the war, but on this particular morning she couldn’t shake the feeling that all eyes were on her—as if
she
were wearing Snow White’s satiny yellow skirt and navy blue bodice with puffy red-and-white sleeves. Today, instead of the princess’s tiara, a plain felt hat hid most of her pinned-up blonde hair. With a sigh, she adjusted the broad brim of the unstylish headdress and ran her right hand down the front of her dowdy, gray two-piece wool suit to smooth any wrinkles. She had refrained from patting her cheeks with foundation and rouge that morning, hoping her plain face indicated that she was ready to punch a time clock and put in an honest day’s work.

Gabi took a deep breath and refocused her thoughts. She reminded herself that when she walked through the German
Kontrolle
, she would be just another frumpy seamstress reporting for work at H&M Textiles, a Swiss-owned factory where two hundred employees—mostly her countrywomen— stitched military uniforms and wove army blankets for the German front lines and rear guard. At least that’s what Dieter’s forged work permit in her black leather handbag indicated.

Her shaky fingers tucked the handbag under her arm.
You
can do this.
She struggled to control her nerves.
You need to
do this. They are depending on you . . . and if Dieter Baumann
turns out to be a lying, two-timing scoundrel, you can
handle that
.

Gabi fell in with the early morning exodus marching into the Badischer Bahnhof station hall, which was architecturally punctuated by a five-story clock tower. Thanks to a longstanding treaty signed between Germany and Switzerland in 1852, the Basel train station was planted literally on the border between the two countries, placing the ticket booths, shops, and Three Corners Café on Swiss soil while the train platforms belonged to Germany.

Swiss commuters had to traverse a fifty-meter tunnel linking the Swiss station hall and the German rail platforms. Baslers working in German factories and businesses negotiated this no-man’s-land by passing through separate identification and work permit checks performed first by the Swiss Border Control, followed by the Wehrmacht. Once in German territory, Swiss commuters exited the rail station and boarded buses and trams for Weil am Rhein and Haltingen.

The border arrangement was not reciprocal, however. The Swiss military had to approve all transit passes for Germans entering Switzerland, so there was very little foot traffic in the other direction, at least this early in the morning. Only Swiss citizens with proper identity cards—and a Basler dialect, as Gabi’s friends joked—were allowed to reenter the Motherland.

Gabi joined the single-file queue descending into the tunnel beneath the station. The pungent odors of perspiring bodies nearly gagged her in the crammed space. She knew too many Swiss who believed bathing was reserved for Saturday nights only. For nearly a quarter of an hour, the line of people drew her along until Gabi finally reached an inspection table where three men dressed in olive Swiss Border Control uniforms perfunctorily checked official documents.

“Work permit, please.” The youngest member of the checkpoint detail held out his hand while the other two Swiss border guards watched over his shoulder. “Along with your identity card.”

Gabi reached into her handbag and produced the necessary identification. “You should find everything in order.” She cast a warm smile but nothing remotely flirtatious. The Swiss border guard, a blond-haired, smooth-skinned Basler with glistening eyes, looked the same age as her twin brothers.

“Taking a job, I see. You must be new around here.” The private’s friendly grin revealed his dimples.

“That’s correct.” Gabi knew a flirt when she saw one.

“Maybe we can have a coffee after you get off work.”

“Do members of the
Grenzpolizei
always make a pass while they’re on duty?” Gabi punctuated her comeback with a brighter smile that turned the private’s ears red and prompted his compatriots to stifle a laugh.

“Very well,” he said dryly, waving her on. “Please respect the no-talking rule in the tunnel.”

She was committed now. Gabi clutched another lungful of air to settle her nerves and queued up for the German checkpoint. The dark tunnel, packed mostly with Swiss women pressing to get to work on time, imbued a surreal eeriness. Nazi Germany certainly had to be another world, and this would be her first personal experience with the evil she had read so much about.

As Gabi advanced toward the end of the tunnel, a spotlight burned ever brighter into her eyes. She strained to see what was beyond the steel mesh fencing, which looked to be a transit hall leading to several rail platforms.

This queue, surprisingly, moved quickly, and she found out why when she reached the German customs control. A trio of Wehrmacht officers, flanked by a fourth brandishing a machine gun, waved through three or four at a time with barely a glimpse at the official documents. She assumed they were regulars accorded expedited treatment.

“Halt. Papiere, bitte.”
A German officer, who looked to be in his early thirties, singled her out. With a square head larger than normal and a great beak of a nose, the officer personified rigid authority and a streak of ruthlessness.

Gabi’s eyes moved from his angular visage to his gray-green tunic with four pleated patch pockets and a pair of silver twist, cord-piped collar tabs. What most caught her attention, though, was the insignia on the left breast pocket: a woven eagle and skull embroidered onto a matching gray-green wool trapezoid with a firm backing. She meekly handed over her work permit without a peep.

The officer studied the official German document. “How long have you been working at H&M?” His pronunciation of High German put her off balance for a moment, but she had rehearsed an answer to this question.

“Actually, this is my first day,” she replied in High German.

The German officer next reviewed her Swiss identity card, eyes roving from her black-and-white photo on the document to her face. Gabi felt her neck muscles tighten and her stomach lurch, but she ignored her discomfort. She thought about distracting him by asking what bus line she should take, but she decided to remain as inconspicuous as possible. She lowered her gaze so he couldn’t look into her eyes underneath the brim of her hat.

More seconds passed as a train whistle shrieked from a locomotive passing overhead. Heavy railcars sent a deep rumble through the concrete-lined tomb. The sound of squealing air brakes signaled that the train was coming to a full stop.

“Carry on.” The officer returned her work permit and moved to the next person in line.

Just like that, she was in. Gabi accepted her papers and walked purposefully past the mesh fencing into the German side of the Badischer Bahnhof. Several concrete stairways on the right and left directed passengers to numbered platforms, but Gabi continued marching along the dimly lit hall strewn with old newspapers and trash. She noticed that a half-dozen shops were boarded up, save for a single kiosk offering a limited inventory of newspapers, magazines, and books along with several baskets of fruit. The price posted for her favorite fruit—apricots—looked cheaper than in Switzerland.

Dieter Baumann’s directions were specific. Once in Germany, she was to walk to the bus depot in front of the train station, where the Swiss operative would be waiting for her. She set her sights on the bright daylight of a summer morning, but a hand brushed her arm, and someone sidled up to her. Gabi’s footsteps slowed.

“I see you passed through with no problems.”

Gabi turned toward the voice.

“Keep going. We can keep talking, but let’s not draw any extra attention our way.”

“I thought you were meeting me at the bus stop.”

Dieter Baumann, dressed in a gray pinstripe suit, unleashed a broad grin. “I lagged behind just in case something tripped you up at the checkpoint.” He winked at her. “I wasn’t amazed that you made it. You never cease to surprise me, Gabi. I’m even awed by how gorgeous you look in those old-fashioned work clothes.”

Nice try, Dieter
. Her stomach churned as she realized how she’d let her emotions get the better of her in previous interactions with him. His intentions were becoming clearer. How he’d singled her out. Used his good looks to charm her. Uttered compliments to disarm her. And now this operation in wartime Germany, which smelled like week-old perch from Lake Geneva. Gabi quietly balled her fists as her anger increased with each step, yet she could not give away her true feelings. Mr. Dulles counted on her. The Americans counted on her. And her compatriots counted on her to expose this weasel.

Gabi returned a flirtatious glance. “My mom said this Basque suit was quite the style back in . . . 1921, when she last wore it.”

“You talked to your mother about—”

“Of course not. You have nothing to worry about.” She ever so lightly brushed her fingers against his hand. “Have I ever let you down?”

Gabi and Dieter took seats close to the front of the bus where a farmer kept one arm draped over a tarp-shrouded wooden cage. Piercing squawks erupted each time the lumbering bus hit another pothole, an occurrence of increasing frequency.

Gabi thought the driver, a Frenchman in his sixties wearing a navy beret, wasn’t too interested in winning the Bus Driver of the Month competition. When he wasn’t driving straight into potholes, he forgot about double-shifting to the next gear, preferring to grind the gearbox as the dented bus lurched in response.

She touched Dieter on the arm and rolled her eyes, which elicited his grin. “I’ll need to see a doctor for my lumbago after this bus ride is over,” she said. “So where are we?”

“The Friedlingen quarter of Weil am Rhein. We’re coming up soon on several Swiss textile factories, including H&M.” Dieter pointed toward his left. “They were established before the Great War when Swiss bankers poured investment francs into German holding companies because of cheaper land and available labor. After the Nazi blitzkrieg in 1939, neither side saw any reason to change the status quo. The Swiss had the law on their side because they owned the factories and the Germans needed their output to clothe their advancing armies as well as the home-front populace.”

“That explains a lot.” Gabi looked to her right through a grimy bus window. Beyond the leafy green environs, she caught the white steeple belonging to St. Franziskus Catholic Church—in Riehen. She found it hard to believe that her hometown—and freedom—were just a kilometer or two away as the crow flies. The double rows of three-meter-high fencing and barbed wire along the border were a formidable barrier, however.

“Is our stop soon?” she asked.

“Two or three to go before the main square. We’ll walk from there.” Dieter cradled a small leather valise in his lap as part of the Swiss businessman ruse.

Gabi turned toward her counterpart. “Have you been to this house before?”

“No, and I didn’t want to risk another trip into Germany for reconnaissance. My source guaranteed the house is empty. A key is underneath the clay pot next to the back door. This place is on the edge of town and backs up to a vineyard. If we run into any nosy neighbors, I’ll say we’re acting on behalf of the Gestapo. That usually cuts short any conversations.”

“Your High German is that good?” Of course, Dieter could speak
Hochdeutsch
. She was referring to his Swiss accent.

Dieter held up a hand. “Not as good as yours. Tell them you’re my secretary on a mission that we’re not at liberty to discuss.”

When their stop came, they exited the bus. The deliberate walk through Weil am Rhein’s modest commercial district passed without incident, and ten minutes later they found the house at Wittlingerstrasse 6, an upper-crust villa that had seen better days. The two-story mansion, painted in amaranth pink and as tall as it was wide, was set off from a quiet two-way lane with a circular gravel driveway. An unkempt lawn was green from summer thundershowers, and the scruffy grounds and straggly bushes hadn’t been tended to recently.

Gabi adjusted her hat and glanced over her shoulder, scanning the streets for any signs they were being watched.

“Let’s walk in the back door like we own the place,” Dieter said. “In broad daylight.”

The pair strolled around the sizable villa to an unfenced backyard bordered by several hectares of ripening green grapes, dangling in winged clusters from three-wire trellises. Within the backyard confines was a small garden plot overrun with weeds and field grasses. The unpicked tomatoes, zucchini, and squash were rotting on the vine.