The Woman from Bratislava (24 page)

‘It was not an unusual sight,’ Samson went on unfazed. ‘Revenge was a powerful driving force on both sides. Through their spies, Pedersen and the rest of the regiment learned that the band of partisans responsible for the ambush and the massacre hid out in a village fifteen kilometres away. They sneaked into it at night and left again in the morning. The Danish SS troops set out for this village and were there, ready and waiting at daybreak, but no partisans were seen leaving the village, which lay quiet and
peaceful
on a bend in the river. So the Danes moved in and searched the houses, but found no weapons. Nonetheless, they then began systematically to hang all the men and boys in the village – one after another. Just as the slaves were crucified after the rebellion in Capua. There they dangled in rows. Each time, the Danish
Sturmbannführer
asked: Where are the terrorists? The women, who had been herded into the village square, wept and begged and pleaded and denied that they had ever sheltered partisans. Then another man or boy was hung by the neck.’

‘But it was a Croatian village, wasn’t it?’

‘Not all Croats sided with the Germans. As I say, Tito was a Croat. In the Balkans, Chief Inspector, nothing is straightforward.’

‘Then what happened?’

Samson took another sip of his brandy and dabbed his lips almost primly with his crumpled, red-checked napkin, before saying:

‘Once all the men and boys had been hung, they drove the women and children into the church, set fire to it and to the other
buildings in the village and burned the whole lot to the ground. One massacre among many, then as now. Afterwards, when the blood-lust had left them the SS soldiers felt sickened by what they had done. They drank to forget, but some could not get those images out of their minds – among them Pedersen. He never got over it. He had lost his faith in the cause. It was one thing to have an image of himself fighting the Bolsheviks and seeing the Jews being taken away, but now the atrocities had struck at the
countrymen
of the girl he loved. Love and evil fought it out in his heart, and the battle continued when, in the December, they returned to the Eastern Front, far fewer in number than when they first came to Croatia.’

Samson drained his glass. Toftlund left his where it was for a moment, then slid it across to the Slovak, who lifted it and swirled the dark liquid around the glass, as if it was his first cognac and and he wanted to release the full aroma.

‘There’s not much more to tell, really,’ Samson said at length. ‘Obviously there are some gaps in the story. The Nordland
Division
and with it the Danish Regiment and
Sturmbannführer
Pedersen
, was sent to Oranienburg, not far from Leningrad. That was in December 1943, and it was the beginning of the end. We know that Pedersen took part in the retreat to Narva, that he came home to Denmark once on leave, but that he then deserted. In the early spring he turned up in his sweetheart’s village, where the baker was dead and his daughter had switched her allegiance to Tito. How he managed to get from the front, or Denmark, to Yugoslavia we do not know. He never said. Only that he had walked through Poland, down through Slovakia, from there into Hungary and south to Croatia. He had travelled by night. Occasionally he had been helped by people who thought he was one of the partisans. Or because they realised he was a deserter. Or possibly because there are good people everywhere. In any case, on a spring day in 1945 he walked into the village and sat down in a café. As if he had merely been out for a little stroll. He looked like a toilworn
farm labourer. He was nothing but skin and bone and he had lost two teeth. Word of his coming must have reached his sweetheart, because she found him. She was eager to find him, so that he could see his baby daughter. Why wasn’t he shot? Who knows. Maybe she shielded him. Maybe everyone was simply tired of all the killing. Maybe his life was spared for the simple reason that he was a baker: the village lacked a baker and there he was. He stayed for six months, the war came to an end, and then he vanished again, as suddenly as he had appeared. Then, in the early fifties he returned and remained there until his death. Everyone knew him as the baker. Not as anything else. Unless it was as the baker with the beautiful daughter who worked for the nameless ones in Belgrade. No one was interested in the past. Everyone had a past.’

‘What an amazing story,’ Toftlund said. ‘How come you know it in such detail?’

‘Because one of the volunteers in Pedersen’s company was my father. A Sudeten German. My father told me this story six years ago, before he died. He made me promise that I would help
Pedersen’s
daughter, if she ever needed it. Because the Dane had saved his life more than once on the Eastern Front. Because they had deserted together, although they soon became separated. Because he felt he owed the Dane something. Because they shared the dreadful secret of those Croatian women and children in that burning church.’

‘How did they get in touch again after the war?’

‘These people know one another, Toftlund.’

‘An old Nazi network!’

Samson laughed out loud, almost a little too loudly. Two of the guys in suits turned to stare at their table and the blonde crossed one nylon-clad leg languidly over the other.

‘No, Chief Inspector. Nothing could be farther from the truth. They are not Nazis. Nazism is dead and buried, thank God. And the so-called neo-Nazis are nothing but a bunch of frustrated racists, men with no knowledge of history who, inferior as they
are, imagine that they are living by a historic ideal. The others are old comrades who help one another because they have a common history, one which they cannot share with others.’

‘Most of them must be dead by now anyway.’

‘Yes, they are, but their children are alive, and that is why I am asking you to help this woman. You don’t have to do it for nothing. She has something for you, something you could use. She doesn’t come empty-handed.’

‘What does she want?’

‘Asylum, a residence permit, to blank out the past, enjoy peace of mind in her old age.’

Toftlund said nothing for a moment. Then:

‘Such things are not up to me.’

‘Denmark is a liberal, open-minded country.’

‘Not any more, it isn’t,’ Toftlund said. ‘Nonetheless, I think it’s safe to say that something can be arranged. If what she has to offer is of sufficient interest, I should be able to bend the rules. We’ve done it before. More than that I can’t promise right now.’

‘Well, for now that will have to do.’

‘Where is she? And what’s her name?’

‘I don’t know where she is. She’s on the run. I may be able to find out, though. She goes by many names, but her real name is Maria Borija Pedersen. Although naturally she has never used that last name.’

‘And what would she give in payment?’ Toftlund asked, although he already knew the answer. Samson did not reply, but his eyes narrowed. The door had swung open. Toftlund was sitting side on to it, Samson more with his back to it, but he had looked round. Two men in black leather jackets walked in. Their faces were covered by motorbike helmets with smoked visors. Samson and Toftlund both caught sight of them at the same moment: the Russian-made Markarov pistols held straight down alongside their trouser legs, almost merging with the black jeans, but becoming hideously distinct as the arms of the two black-clad men came up
in perfect sync, almost as if their strings were being pulled by the puppet master on Charles Bridge. Toftlund and Samson both saw what was happening, but only Toftlund was quick enough to react. He threw himself sideways out of the booth and onto the floor, instinctively reaching, as he did so, for the gun that was normally stuck into his belt. Per rolled over and slid under the neighbouring table as the first shots rang out. He saw half of Samson’s face
disappear
as the heavy dum-dum bullet hit him at close range. He kept on rolling across the floor, with the screams of the waitresses in his ears; he looked up into the astounded face of the blonde, who was staring at the red blotch now spreading between her breasts. The man sitting next to her clutched at his shoulder and fell on top of her. Toftlund tried to crawl away. One of the visored men took two steps forward and drew a bead on Per, straight-armed with a two-handed grip on his gun. Nothing happened. Toftlund was conscious of the gunman trying again, but again the pistol misfired. It was jamming somehow. Toftlund grabbed the leg of the nearest chair and hurled it with all his might at the knees of the gunman, who staggered back a few paces. He shouted
something
above the screams, his partner took his eye off the room and brought his pistol round to point at Toftlund, moving, so it seemed to the Dane, in slow motion. He made another effort to scramble away, but he appeared to have no command over his limbs, he lay there as if riveted to the floor. Then he heard more shots. These had a different sound to them. As if they came from a revolver: the short, sharp crack of a Smith & Wesson. One of the visored men spun round and keeled over, hitting the bar where the three Englishmen had been having their peaceable chat about golf. The other whipped his gun arm and his face round to
confront
two of the men in suits. One of them had a snub-nosed revolver in his hand. His face was contorted with shock and fear. His companion clutched the edge of the table as if it were a lifebelt which could render him immune to the bullets which were bound to be coming his way. His face was white as a sheet and drool ran
from the corner of his mouth. The revolver barked again, but a tinkle from the mirror behind the bar told Toftlund that the bullet had missed the assassin. The latter froze for a second, as if he had felt the rush of air from the projectile and was surprised to find himself still alive; then, with a quick glance at the still form of his partner he turned on his heel and ran out. The smell of cordite smothered that of fried food and cigarette smoke. And the only sounds in the restaurant were of sniffling somewhere out back and the steady drip-drip of Pavel Samson’s blood trickling onto the new, nicely polished parquet floor.

Dearest sister,

I write to you knowing full well that you are unlikely ever to receive my letter, but you are the only one I can talk to. They have given me my computer, having first copied every single little document, of course. I can’t help laughing at the stupid, uneducated cops who are at this very moment poring over my dissertation on ‘The new role of women in the globalised, late-capitalist economy – a
literary
perspective’. Other than that there’s not much to laugh at. I am writing in our common language, German; using a code to hide my words. Might they be able to break it? Not that I care, because I might as well be writing in soap or in sand. Once I am finished I will erase my thoughts.

I am sitting in a cell: seven metres square by my calculations, containing a cot, a washbasin and a small table. The walls are an ugly yellow. It is night. I can sense more than see the moon out there beyond the little window high above my head – just under the ceiling, about three metres up, I would guess. An impression of a golden light shining down on the Western Prison, a light which would like to break through the walls and caress me if it could. I am a political prisoner in a country that boasts of being civilised and democratic while, in all its hypocrisy, practising the worse possible form of torture: that of cutting a person off from their fellow human beings.

I am allowed to speak to one member of my family for an hour once a week, strictly supervised of course. Fritz was here the other day, sat there in the interview room, heavy and silent as always, uncomfortable with the policeman who was monitoring our
conversation
. All he could talk about was his bread and buns. He
looks like Dad. As Dad could have looked had he been permitted to lead a normal life. With none of Dad’s charm, but with his nose for business. Fritz may seem a bit dense, but he’s smarter than he looks. I can’t talk to him about serious personal matters, though. He sees everything in terms of buns and French loaves. As long as he can make a decent living, go hunting, enjoy life with his wife, ensure that the factory is doing well and his pension savings
multiplying
nicely, and know that his children continue to thrive, Fritz is a happy man. Teddy has not been to see me yet. He was out travelling when I was arrested. But he got me a lawyer so he must be back. I am expecting to see my shrewd and intelligent, if
somewhat
superficial, little brother very soon.

Otherwise, it’s just one interrogation after another. I can tell from their questions that they have spoken to everyone I know, but they have nothing; nor do they realise that the world has changed. They are like sheep, they follow the herd, and unlike you and me they have never understood that the world is an unjust place which only the chosen can change, to assure a better life for all. They are marionettes in the grim puppet show of capitalism, in which the people are seduced with Coca-Cola and TV. And in which a company director in the US earns as much as 479,000 farmworkers in Zimbabwe, as I read in one of the newspapers which they do, at least, allow me to read. That we, the affluent ten per cent of the world’s population, control eighty-six per cent of its resources – I don’t need to ask you: is that the justice of
liberalism
, because you know the answer as well as I do. We believed in another kind of society. Our dreams were shattered by the folly of mankind, but does that mean we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater? Would Christians deny Jesus Christ simply because the church has for centuries committed indescribable atrocities in his name? Should we deny our fundamental principles because of the rape by a handful of individuals of the great socialist and communist ideals. Something tells me, too, that a new generation of young people is waking up to these facts. They have cast off
the trauma of socialism’s downfall and are starting to protest – in word and action – against global injustice.

But I did not mean to rant on about politics to you, sister. I simply wanted to while away the night by talking to you. I cannot sleep anyway, and the time goes so slowly. I know they’ll be back again tomorrow, asking the same – albeit courteous, but at the same time accusatory – questions. They think they actually know the answers and merely want me to confirm their
misapprehensions
, but I won’t.

It has grown darker outside, the moon has disappeared and I can hear the rain pattering against the wall and the little window. The sound of the cold spring rain takes me back to the day that marked the end of my childhood. Then as now, there was a sense that the rain could turn to sleet and thereafter to snow even. In the sort of false winter that can sometimes strike in the Danish autumn: the soft snow rendering the whole world hushed and white. It doesn’t seem quite right, though, for it to fall when we are looking forward to spring.

May I share that day with you?

It was not a spring day, but a day in autumn. Very early in the morning. I was twelve at the time, riding with a bunch of other twelve-to sixteen-year-olds in a wagon pulled by a dark-grey tractor, one of the new Fergusons which were starting to appear in the country. Even then, in 1952, they were something of a
sensation
in a land which, in many ways, still bore the scars of the war and where horses still supplied the main pulling power on the land. The tractor was driven by Niels Ejnar. We could see the back of his neck under his greasy cap and every now and again the breeze would blow the smell of his pipe tobacco back to us in the wagon. The scent of Virginia tobacco, which still seemed strange, but rich and sensual after the peculiar weed the
grown-ups
had smoked during the war. The tractor’s big wheels ploughed along the muddy cart-tracks and the wagon rocked and rolled as if we were on a ship. We were all dressed in warm trousers and
sweaters, with thick socks inside our high rubber boots. It was a chilly morning, but with that crispness to the air which makes you feel good to be alive. It was still dark, but there was a lovely, slender band of light on the horizon against which I could see the bare-branched trees taking shape and coming to life. Rain lurked in the domed clouds.

Niels Ejnar was a big, beefy man in his early thirties with a high bald head and little blue eyes. He and his brother had a
smallholding
out on the fen, not far from the marsh that bordered on the beach, down where the meadows gave way to old grass-covered dykes. He was a friend of Dad’s, or at least they were somehow connected: they had a certain way of looking at one another
sometimes
. He never said much, but people didn’t in those days. He minded his own business and toiled for his bread, as they said. Along with his wife, a tall thin woman with a narrow, pockmarked faced of whom we were terrified as kids, because we thought she looked like the witch in
Hansel and Gretel.

It was a chilly morning, but fraught with anticipation. My little brother Fritz was sitting across from me, next to Peter, the
lawyer’s
son who only had eyes for Bente, who was ages with himself. Fritz was only nine, but he had been allowed to join the beaters on the first big autumn shoot to be hosted by the Count. Hence the reason we kids were in that wagon, on our way to the first beat, with the promise of a
daler
at the end of the day and lemonade and pastries in the course of it. It made me all warm and fluttery and happy inside to think of my father being there with the other fine men of the district and the guests whom the Count had invited all the way from Copenhagen. The Count was a tall gaunt man with a little goatee beard, which was quite unusual back then. He was a curiously aloof man who lived on his estate a little way outside the town. As with so many others there was some mystery
surrounding
his wartime activities. Like the other farmers he had apparently made good money out of supplying produce to the Germans, but in 1944 the Count had had a change of heart. Still, though, when
liberation came he managed to escape repercussions only because he had given shelter to two British airmen, or so my father and mother said. After the war he had gone on living in the area, on his estate. We had moved from South Zealand to the clement island of Fünen and taken over the bakery, which had been going cheap. ‘The comrades helped us,’ my parents said. It was best that no one knew about our past. The photograph of my father in his black uniform had been hidden away as far back as 1944, though he was not even home at that point. They never mentioned the war, or where he had been. Why he had suddenly vanished after being home on leave in 1943. Fritz stemmed from that visit. And why he had suddenly shown up again towards the end of 1947. My little brother Teddy was the product of that homecoming.

I don’t remember much about the war. Only, in the early days, a feeling of happiness, uniforms, songs and speeches, the aroma of tobacco, the women’s heavy perfumes and my mother and father at the hub of elevated conversation in Danish and in German, that strange language that was both hard and soft. My lovely mother was the object of much attention from the handsome men. But I loved my Dad best. He was tall and slim and carried himself with dignity. It seemed perfectly natural when he said that some people were chosen to lead and that the Nordic race was superior to all the others. These words sounded so true, coming from the fine lips under his straight nose. Although maybe I don’t really remember this at all? Maybe it’s just something I read. My knowledge of that time is, after all, a product of my reading. But I do remember that good feeling inside. Or did I simply pick that up from the letters I found years later when my mother moved into a nursing home and I, as the oldest and the daughter, had the job of clearing out the house? I was only four when he came home from the front. All I remember is that he was very thin, his face grey, and his hands shook. That and the voices from my parents’ bedroom in the house where we were living at the time. They were loud and shrill; I remember my mother’s tears and my father’s hacking cough.
Before, when he’d been home on leave, neighbours and friends had flocked to the house to sing songs and listen to speeches. But on this last furlough hardly anyone came to see us. Life went on just the same, though. Everyone carried on as normal. Did
business
with the Germans, got on with their work, listened to the government’s urgings to stay calm. But it was as if we had
contracted
a disease. As if the good times were over. Even though Dad and the others had gone off to war with the government’s support and blessing. With brass bands and parades and speeches on the radio. Later I learned the whole story, of course, but as a child I only sensed, more with my heart than my mind, how everything changed, slowly and imperceptibly, and treachery and hypocrisy became the order of the day. How the big men knew how to look out for themselves, offering up the small fry to satisfy the mob’s thirst for revenge at the end of the war.

But on that morning in 1952, riding in that wagon, the war seemed a million miles away. The country might have been poor and battle-scarred, but there was something in the air. We had moved to a new place where no one knew us, and the Danes seemed mainly concerned with making a better life for
themselves
. Most political prisoners had been released and if anyone was acquainted with my family’s past then they kept quiet about it, because they were a part of that same past. We lived in a big white house with lots and lots of rooms. It sat right next to the bakery, in which two time-served bakers and an apprentice were employed. We had a driver who delivered bread to all the farms. We also had a cold store to which people consigned their sides of pork or whole pigs. Come Christmas the house was filled with the smell of roast pork and roast duck. Not just from Mum’s kitchen, but also from the bakery to which the locals brought their
Yuletide
joints and birds for roasting in the big oven. In Europe, cities – not to mention whole countries – still lay in ruins, but once again Denmark had emerged more or less unscathed: the Danes are highly adaptable and know how to make the best of things.
That was a happy time. My mother began to dress up nice again, she smelled of perfume once more, and mysterious sounds, both ominous and deliciously intriguing, issued from the big bedroom. The summer before that autumn shoot my father hired a
photographer
to take an aerial picture of the house and the bakery. It was a really hot summer’s day, the air heavy with scent and a-hum with insects, when the small single-engined plane swooped over my childhood home, skimming over the red tiled roof and the elm trees I remember so clearly from our huge garden. We were lined up in front of the house; Mum and Dad had put Fritz into baker’s togs just like Dad’s, because even at that point it was more or less understood that Fritz would be a baker like Dad.

The wagon jounced along and I looked across at Fritz. He might have been three years younger than me, but he was already a big lad with his father’s wide mouth and hefty shoulders. Under the raincoat his sweater strained across his chest. Beneath the rough cap which he had pulled down low over his forehead as always, he was grinning. My other little brother, Theodor, was at home, of course. At the age of four he was still a baby as far as we were
concerned
. While Fritz and I took after Dad, Teddy, with his blonde curls, beautiful eyes and sunny smile looked more like Mum. And like Mum he cried easily. Even for a little kid it didn’t take much for him to burst into tears. And not just if he happened to hurt himself: at the thought of someone dying, the sight of a mouse caught in a trap in the bakery or taken by the cat, or a dead
ladybird
on the sun-warmed stone of the front step, he was liable to start howling heartrendingly. It seemed only natural to call him Teddy, because he was exactly like a soft, cuddly little teddy bear. He was the family pet, as late babies often are. My father thought him a bit of a namby-pamby, but my mother defended him and coddled and cossetted him. Then my father would eye me proudly, remove the pipe from his mouth and say: ‘Irma, my lass. You’re a damn fine chap. The sort one can rely on. A true comrade. And you should always be able to rely on a comrade. Through thick
and thin. Remember that! Never fail a comrade!’ My whole world revolved around my father and I loved him with all my heart.