A German Requiem

Belinsky paused and looked about the surgery. 'You finished looking around in here?'

I told him I was and asked if he had found anything in the house. He shook his head and said he hadn't. Then I said that we had better get the hell out of there.

He resumed his explanation as we climbed into the car.

'Take the case of Heinrich Mnller, chief of the Gestapo. He was last seen alive in Hitler's bunker in April 1945. Mnller was supposed to have been killed in the battle for Berlin in May 1945. But when after the war his body was exhumed, a dental expert specializing in jawbone surgery at a Berlin hospital in the British sector couldn't identify the teeth in the corpse as those belonging to a forty-four-year-old male. He thought that the corpse was more probably that of a man of no more than twenty-five.' Belinsky turned the ignition, gunned the engine for a second or two, and then slipped the car into gear.

Crouched over the steering-wheel, he drove badly for an American, double-declutching, missing his gears and generally over-steering. It was clear to me that driving required all of his attention, but he continued with his calm explanation, even after we had almost killed a passing motorcyclist.

'When we catch up with some of these bastards, they've got false papers, new hairstyles, moustaches, beards, glasses, you name it. But teeth are as good as a tattoo, or sometimes a fingerprint. So if any of them have had all their teeth pulled it removes yet another possible means of identification. After all, a man who can explode a cartridge under his arm to remove an SS number probably wouldn't baulk at wearing false teeth, would he?'

I thought of the burn scar under my own arm and reflected that he was probably right. To disguise myself from the Russians I would certainly have resorted to having my teeth out, assuming that I would have the same opportunity for painless extraction as Max Abs and Helmut K/nig.

'No, I guess not.'

'You can bet your life on it. Which is why I stole Heim's appointment-book.' He patted the breast of his coat where I assumed he was now keeping it. 'It might be interesting to find out who these men with bad teeth really are. Your friend K/nig, for instance. And Max Abs too. I mean, why would a little SS chauffeur feel the need to disguise what he had in his mouth? Unless he wasn't an SS corporal at all.' Belinsky chuckled enthusiastically at the thought of it.

'That's why I have to be able to see in the dark. Some of your old comrades really know how to mix the maps. You know, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we're still chasing some of these Nazi bastards when their kids are having to sugar their strawberries for them.'

'All the same,' I said, 'the longer it is before you catch them, the harder it will be to get a positive identification.'

'Don't you worry,' he snarled vindictively. 'There won't be a shortage of witnesses willing to come forward and testify against these shits. Or perhaps you think people like Mnller and Globocnik should be allowed to get away with it?'

'Who's Globocnik, when he's having a party?'

'Odilo Globocnik. He headed up Operation Reinhard, establishing most of the big death camps in Poland. Another one who is supposed to have committed suicide in '45. So come on, what do you think? There's a trial going on in Nuremberg right now. Otto Ohlendorf, commander of one of those S S special action groups. Do you think he should hang for his war crimes?'

'War crimes?' I repeated wearily. 'Listen, Belinsky, I worked in the Wehrmacht's War Crimes Bureau for three years. So don't think you can lecture me about fucking war crimes.'

'I'm just interested to know where you stand, kraut. Exactly what kind of war crimes did you Jerries investigate anyway?'

'Atrocities, by both sides. You've heard of Katyn Forest?'

'Of course. You investigated that?'

'I was part of the team.'

'How about that?' He seemed genuinely surprised. Most people were.

'Frankly, I think that the idea of charging fighting men with war crimes is absurd. The murderers of women and children should be punished, yes. But it wasn't just Jews and Poles who were killed by people like Mnller and Globocnik.

They murdered Germans, too. Perhaps if you'd given us half a chance we could have brought them to justice ourselves.'

Belinsky turned off Wahringer Strasse and drove south, past the long edifice of the General Hospital and on to Alser Strasse where, encountering the same recollection as myself, he slowed the car to a more respectful pace. I could tell he had been about to answer my point, but now he grew quiet, almost as if he felt obliged to avoid giving me any cause for offence. Drawing up outside my pension, he said: 'Did Traudl have any family?'

'Not that I know of. There's just Becker.' I wondered at that, though. The photograph of her and Colonel Poroshin still preyed on my mind.

'Well, that's all right. I'm not going to lose any sleep worrying about his grief.'

'He's my client, in case you'd forgotten. In helping you I'm supposed to be working to prove him innocent.'

'And you're convinced of that?'

'Yes, I am.'

'But surely you must know he's on the Crowcass list.'

'You're pretty cute,' I said dumbly, 'letting me make all the running like this, only to tell me that. Supposing that I do get lucky and win the race, am I going to be allowed to collect the prize?'

'Your friend is a murdering Nazi, Bernie. He commanded an execution squad in the Ukraine, massacring men, women and children. I'd say that he deserved to hang whether he killed Linden or not.'

'You're pretty cute, Belinsky,' I repeated bitterly, and started to get out of the car.

'But as far as I'm concerned, he's small fry. I'm after bigger fish than Emil Becker. You can help me. You can try and repair some of the damage that your country has done. A symbolic gesture, if you like. Who knows if enough Germans do the same then maybe the account could be settled.'

'What are you talking about?' I said, from the road. 'What account?' I leaned on the car door and bent forward to see Belinsky take out his pipe.

'God's account,' he said quietly. I laughed and shook my head in disbelief.

'What's the matter? Don't you believe in God?'

'I don't believe in trying to make a deal with him. You speak about God as if he sells secondhand cars. I've misjudged you. You're much more of an American than I thought you were.'

'Now that's where you're wrong. God likes making deals. Look at that covenant he made with Abraham, and with Noah. God's a huckster, Bernie. Only a German could mistake a deal for a direct order.'

'Get to the point, will you? There is a point, isn't there?' His manner seemed to indicate as much.

'I'm going to level with you '

'Oh? I seem to remember you doing that a little earlier on.'

'Everything I told you was true.'

'There's just more to come, right?'

Belinsky nodded and lit his pipe. I felt like smacking it out of his mouth.

Instead I got back into the car and closed the door.

'With your penchant for selective truth, you should get a job in an advertising agency. Let's hear it.'

'Just don't make a hot throat at me until I'm through, right?'

I nodded curtly.

'All right. For a start, we Crowcass believe Becker is innocent of Linden's murder. You see, the gun which killed him was used to kill somebody else in Berlin almost three years ago. The ballistics people matched that bullet with the one that killed Linden, and they were both fired from the same gun. For the time of the first killing Becker has a pretty good alibi: he was a Russian prisoner of war. Of course he could have acquired the gun since then, but I haven't come to the interesting part yet, the part that actually makes me want Becker to be innocent.