The Pale House Page 21

  “I’ll help you, Dreyer.”

  Dreyer breathed once or twice, then opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling. “What?”

  “I said I’d help you.”

  Dreyer hauled himself back up. “Why?”

  “I think your case and my case are linked. This penal battalion has turned up once too often in the past couple of days. And Jansky’s got a connection with the Ustaše. He was at a checkpoint manned by this brute of an Ustaše called Bunda, and Bunda paid attention to him. I saw Jansky again at the Pale House today, going in for a meeting with one of the top Ustaše.”

  Dreyer listened with wide eyes. “So, you don’t think I’m crazy?”

  Reinhardt frowned, leaning his head back. “I never . . .”

  Dreyer waved it away, a lopsided smile hanging off the side of his face. “You are the first . . . first person to take me seriously on this. About Jansky. Thank you.”

  “Thank me later, Marcus, when we might have gotten somewhere.”

  Dreyer flopped back onto his bed, swallowed hard. “Gotten somewhere . . .” he repeated, “gotten somewhere,” his face creasing up again, and his breathing coming suddenly high and ragged. “It’s no good. It won’t work.” There was a glitter at the corner of Dreyer’s eyes, and a panicked edge to his voice.

  “It might. It will,” Reinhardt said. “There’s someone who can help. Someone inside Jansky’s unit.”

  “Inside?” Dreyer struggled onto one elbow. “Who?”

  “Someone I’m seeing tomorrow, an informant the Feldgendarmerie have in the battalion,” said Reinhardt, sidestepping the question but wanting to give Dreyer something, anything, to keep him going. Give him some faith, some hope in the future.

  Dreyer tilted his head at Reinhardt. He smiled, a sudden bright gleam. “Working together. It’ll be just like the old days!”

  Reinhardt would have smiled if he could, but those suspicions of Dreyer came creeping back up on him. That cold, reptilian feeling of something wrong. The music had ended, he realized; the gramophone had stopped. He got up to look at the record. “Duke Ellington?”

  “That’s part of my secret stash. Original imports. None of that Johnny and His Orchestra crap for me. When I leave this world, I’d want the Duke playing over my grave. Do me a favor. Take it off, put it away in that case. That one there. There’s a dreadful recording by Hans Pfitzner by the gramophone. Put that on the turntable, would you?” He snorted a laugh to himself. “Camouflage, Gregor. Hiding in plain sight.”

  “It’s late. I’m going to let you sleep. We’ll be in touch tomorrow, all right?”

  “More than all right, Gregor!” Dreyer threw his arm across his face, a smile pulling at his mouth. Reinhardt turned out the light, then crossed the room quietly. He listened to Dreyer’s breathing go heavy almost straightaway, beginning to rasp at the back of his throat as he started to snore, and let the day start to sieve through his mind again. He had rolled with the punches as much as he could, feeling and guessing at the directions the blows were coming in. Somewhere in all he had seen today, the truth of what was going on was to be found.

  “Nothing is what it seems,” he mouthed to the darkened room, opening and closing the door quietly. He shrugged into his coat, then crossed the clerks’ office with his head down and thoughts far away.

  “A moment, Captain,” a voice called out.

  Reinhardt stopped, turned. The other judge stood there, his spectacles in his hand, his uniform immaculate, pressed and clean.

  “It is Captain Reinhardt, is that right? Judge Erdmann. We met before. Yesterday, if you recall. I wonder, might you spare me a moment of your time? Do come in,” he said, gesturing Reinhardt into his office. Although spare and spartan, and again nothing like any judge’s office he had known in Berlin, the room was clean and tidy, all its lines straight despite the row of half-filled packing cases that lined one wall, Court-Martial Office stenciled across them. “A drink, perhaps?” Erdmann asked as he motioned to a chair. When Reinhardt shook his head, he hitched up the knees of his trousers and sat next to him, one leg elegantly crossed over the other. The judge smiled, showing even, white teeth, and Reinhardt’s hackles went up. “You have been to see our friend, Judge Dreyer? It is rather late to be calling on him, would you not say?”

  Reinhardt inclined his head. “The judge and I had some business together.”

  “It could not wait until morning?” Erdmann smiled again. “It is just that Judge Dreyer needs his rest. He is rather wrung out, he works so terribly hard. We all try to look out for the poor chap, for he spares himself nothing.” The judge looked at him, an avuncular smile wakening a fine web of wrinkles that spread down from his eyes. “I should like to know what is so important you have to come here so late.”

  “I’m not sure I would be at liberty to say, sir.”

  “I am Judge Dreyer’s superior, Captain. You can tell me. In fact, I insist upon it.”

  “I thought Judge Dreyer worked for the War Crimes Bureau?”

  Erdmann cocked his head to one side, and his eyes narrowed to polite slits. “Indeed,” he said. “Be that as it may, we still operate within hierarchies here, Captain, and Judge Dreyer is under my authority. So, I ask again, what did he ask you? Not something to do with the Ustaše, I hope.”

  “You ‘hope,’ sir?”

  “It is a damnable business, Captain, investigating one’s own allies, and at such a dire moment for them. And for us.”

  “Indubitably,” said Reinhardt, dryly, unable to resist a poke at the judge and his austere manner of speech. “A most unpleasant tasking.”

  Erdmann’s head cocked slightly to one side, again, the wrinkles deepening at the corner of his eyes as if he caught some echo of Reinhardt’s sarcasm. “And so? What did Judge Dreyer want?”

  “The judge requested my help with an investigation he has under way.”

  “Oh? Which one would that be?”

  “One regarding a Feldgendarme officer.”

  Erdmann’s lips pursed, and he frowned. “Ah. Would that by any chance be Major Jansky? I thought as much.” He sighed, an eyebrow describing an elegant arc as it went up, and he brushed his spectacles across his mouth. “You could not know, I suppose, but those closest to him know this is his, shall we say, cause célèbre. It preoccupies him. At times, he becomes almost rebarbative in his focus upon it. It has become necessary at times,” he said, his mouth twisting as if around something somewhat unpleasant, “to humor the poor fellow.”

  “I shall bear that in mind, thank you, sir.”

  “I do hope you will forgive him, Captain. I am sure you in the Feldjaegerkorps have more important things to do. Should it be so required, I would be more than happy to intervene with Judge Dreyer and ensure that you are left alone to concentrate on your work.”

  “That is kind of you, sir. Is that all?”

  Erdmann nodded, considering. “Only, I wonder how very fortuitous it is for the judge that he actually has an investigator with whom to work. Well, I shall not keep you from your responsibilities anymore.” He rose to his feet, a hand extended to guide Reinhardt to the door. “Thank you so much for coming, Captain. Do recall, however,” he said, as he accompanied Reinhardt into the clerks’ office, lowering his voice with a somewhat theatrical glance down the short hallway to Dreyer’s office, “the poor fellow is not always himself. He has quite the problem with drink, although he does his very best to hide it. I admire him for that, and for carrying on after what he has endured in Russia.”

  “Are you saying, sir, that there is nothing to Judge Dreyer’s interest in Major Jansky?”

  “Fixation is rather the better word, Captain. Perhaps obsession. Judge Dreyer has a tendency to become positively splenetic when the subject of Major Jansky is broached. And, no, I would not say there is nothing, but I am not convinced there is quite the depth of malice there that Judge Dreyer fee
ls there is. I have myself interviewed Major Jansky and had occasion to meet with him socially. Unquestionably, he is not someone I should want as a dinner guest, but he is an admirable fit for today’s times. To be quite honest, I rather admire the chap, and of course his political convictions and principles are impeccable,” Erdmann said, a hand gently placed in Reinhardt’s back, punctuating his words with little silver gestures of his spectacles, held close to his mouth. “It is a devil of a task he has been handed with that penal battalion, not to mention a most important one, handling such undesirable elements of our armed forces, offering them a chance to redeem their crimes. Men such as Major Jansky should be supported, is my firm conviction, unless a fine reason can be produced otherwise.” They paused as they reached the outer door. “Would you not say, Captain?”

  “Innocent until proven guilty, sir? I would indeed.”

  “Quite, Captain.” Erdmann’s left hand went to Reinhardt’s shoulder, and he offered his right to shake. The judge’s hand was warm, the skin smooth and dry, and his handshake was firm. “You have my complete respect, Captain, for the work you do. You and your fellow Feldjaeger.” He ran his eyes across Reinhardt’s Iron Cross, the Honor Roll Clasp. “My door is always open to you and yours.” A squeeze of Reinhardt’s left shoulder, and the judge released his hand and stepped back from the open door. “A very good night to you, and I hope to see you again under more pleasurable circumstances.”

  Full night fell across the valley. Somewhere, a full moon shone, but its light strained to run the seams in the cloud that squatted over the city. Sometimes the clouds flickered with silver lightning, and the slopes of the mountains appeared, as though called up and created only then, for that moment, and only when they had fallen back into darkness did the thunder rumble.

  His steps heavy with fatigue, Reinhardt made his way to the Feldjaeger’s operations center, peering in around the door to see who was there. A sergeant sat at the radio, flipping slowly through the pages of a magazine, and Benfeld sat alone at the big table with the maps of the city, staring into the far corner of the room, a cigarette burning untouched in front of him. He looked very lost, and very young.

  “Everything all right here?” Reinhardt asked, quietly.

  Benfeld started, knocking over his cigarette. He lurched to his feet, brushing away sparks and ash. “I’m sorry, sir,” he muttered. “You startled me.”

  “My apologies. So, all quiet?”

  “All quiet.” The sergeant nodded agreement from over by the radio. “And you, sir?”

  “Been a busy day. I’ll brief you tomorrow.”

  “The short version . . . ?”

  Reinhardt yawned, leaning his weight back on the table. “A judge who may be able to help us out. The Ustaše who claim the Partisans killed four of their men tonight, and want to link it to our three men.”

  “But . . . ?”

  Reinhardt nodded, yawning again. “But . . . I’m not convinced those four were all killed at the same time. Two of them were certainly killed at the location; the others I’m not so sure of. And there was a fifth body, a woman, dressed as a Partisan.”

  “Oh?”

  “And for all that the bodies had been mutilated, there was not that much blood . . .” he mused, seeing the scene again, almost thinking out loud.

  “Is that it for tonight, sir?”

  Reinhardt started, realizing he had begun to drift off. He yawned and nodded. “For tonight, yes. I’m meeting a soldier from that penal battalion here tomorrow. It seems he might have something for us.”

  “We’re investigating the penal battalion now?”

  “It seems to keep popping up. You remember that judge I went to see the other day? It seems he’s interested in its commander.”

  “In Jansky?” Reinhardt nodded, and Benfeld’s mouth pursed, his eyebrows going up.

  “Sounds messy, doesn’t it?” said Reinhardt.

  “It does. Who is the soldier coming in?”

  “A man called Kreuz,” answered Reinhardt, a third yawn almost cracking his jaw. “Did you get through with those after-action reports? Nothing? Did you include the penal battalion in that search?” Benfeld shook his head. “Do so. They’ve been in and out of the city, and they might well have had some action. Any . . . any messages for me?” Benfeld shook his head again. “Right, I’m for bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.” He paused at the door, his left leg dragging as he turned heavily. “I forgot. That doctor. Don’t forget he owes us information.”

  Benfeld looked blank, and then his face came alight. “Right. Sorry, sir. I had forgotten. I’ll get in touch with him.”

  Reinhardt sought the narrow cot in the small room he had been assigned, but sleep was hard in coming. Once, a long crackle of far-off gunfire stung him awake, straining his hearing into the night, but the firing faded away in a ragged sequence of shots, and no alarm rang through the barracks. Long into what remained of the night, and into the morning, he tried to steady his mind, and foremost in those thoughts was that penal battalion, the martinet stance of Major Jansky, a snitch called Kreuz, and a collection of foreign volunteers. Then thoughts of the Ustaše shouldered themselves in, black-uniformed, sentinels of some imminent end time, poles around which chaos flowed and from which it ensued. Then there was Dreyer, a friend, but some part of Reinhardt, some reptilian sense of something wrong, would not let him settle around him. Dreyer carried something in him, some cold fragment of the past, and Reinhardt was not sure he wanted to be there when it revealed itself.

  The day had clamored past him. It was like trying to keep one’s eyes on two balls at the same time, this investigation. His duties as a Feldjaeger, and his instructions—his license—to investigate the murders of those three men were not necessarily compatible, he was quickly coming to realize. Although he had considerable authority as a Feldjaeger, he could not simply abandon his Feldjaeger duties to pursue this case or barge in wherever he wanted. Evidence would not be found that way. It would vanish or change shape and place and time, and then those three Feldjaeger really would have died for nothing. These contradictions were threatening, already, to entwine him and render him immobile, the more so because he was not even sure what he was investigating, what was the outline of whatever lurked out there.

  —

  Reinhardt slept, eventually, a cramped stretch of sleep that did nothing for the exhaustion he felt, and for the first time in a while he dreamed of Kragujevac, that winter field where the boys and their teachers had been lined up and shot into ditches. In his dream those two young boys, lost and alone in each other’s arms, stared at him but then their eyes merged together, their bodies flowed one into the other, and it was the boy he had rescued from the forest and his little fists were full of earth. The boy lifted his hands and opened them and the earth turned to blood, thick and treacly, and it oozed through his fingers and spattered on a floor of mismatched tiles where Reinhardt’s tooth rolled like an empty bottle atop a teetering deck, flailing from side to side.

  Reinhardt woke with the light of a watery dawn as it spread slowly from the single high window in his room, bathed in sweat, but his breathing strangely calm. He made his ablutions, washed and showered in the echoing space of the communal bathrooms with a hundred other men, then made his way back to the mess hall. The cavernous room had come back to life. The kitchens rang and shook to the bustle of the cooks, and what passed for coffee was poured black and heavy into steel urns. He poured a cup and drank it standing by a window, smoking a cigarette. A train clanked past below, a troop train, full to the brim, armored cars at the front and back with men nestled behind sandbagged machine-gun emplacements. He watched it wind past, vanishing farther up the valley to the west, its smoke rising like a pointing finger in the still air, and wondered when his turn would come, and when Kreuz would show up like he had promised he would.

  Kreuz did not come, but Langenkamp did. Reinhardt watched the liaison
officer move woodenly across the room, placing items precisely on a tray and finding a place to sit by himself at the end of a long table. He watched him, considering, got bread, cheese, and jam for himself, another cup of coffee, and made his way over to where Langenkamp sat.

  “Do you mind if I join you?”

  Langenkamp’s eyes came up slowly, and he looked at Reinhardt without much recognition. Then he swallowed whatever it was he was chewing and gestured loosely at the bench in front of him. Reinhardt sat and laid a piece of limp cheese across a slice of dark, multigrain bread.

  “Thank you for your help yesterday.” Langenkamp looked blankly at him. “At the Pale House. With .” Langenkamp swallowed again, nodded. “In fact, I was wondering about something and was hoping you could help me. What is your thinking, or feeling, about the Ustaše these days? What are you hearing, or what are they saying among themselves?”

  “About?”

  “The end of all this,” Reinhardt said, quietly, watching Langenkamp very closely, but his words—defeatist though they could be considered—had no effect he could see.

  “The Ustaše are clannish,” Langenkamp said, after a moment. “Those from Sarajevo. Others from Herzegovina, farther south. Those from Croatia itself. They do not always see eye to eye on things. The Sarajevo Ustaše, for example, were not happy with being sent in to oversee them. There was some resistance to that. And he purged quite a few of them.”

  “Which group is a member of?”

  “ is from Sarajevo. A small minority of the senior Ustaše are from here. They are very committed to the Ustaše cause. You have, I understand, met Colonel .”

  “A committed man, as you say.”

  “Many of these Bosnian Ustaše, particularly from Sarajevo, seem to bear some kind of grudge against the city. They feel they were excluded from the city prior to the war. From its life.”