A German Requiem

'Wise guy. I don't even know why we're having this conversation. You've still not given me a shred of evidence why I should accept that Becker didn't kill Linden.'

'So you can order a retrial?'

'A file is never quite complete,' he said with a shrug. 'A case is never really closed, even when all the participants are dead. I still have one or two loose ends.'

'I'm all cut up about your loose ends, Shields.'

'Perhaps you should be, Herr Gunther.' His tone was stiffer now. 'Perhaps I ought to remind you that this is a military hospital, and under American jurisdiction. And if you remember, I once had occasion to warn you about meddling in this case. Now that you've done exactly that, I'd say you've still got some explaining to do. Possession of a firearm by a German or Austrian national. Well, that's contrary to the Austrian Military Government's Public Safety Manual for a start. You could get five years for that alone. Then there's the car you were driving. Quite apart from the fact that you were wearing handcuffs and that you don't appear to be in possession of a valid driving licence, there's the small matter of driving through a military checkpoint.' He paused and lit a cigarette. 'So what's it to be: information or incarceration?'

'Neatly put.'

'I'm a neat kind of fellow. All policemen are. Come on. Let's have it.'

I sank back on my pillow resignedly. 'I'm warning you, Shields, you're likely to have as many loose ends as you started with. I doubt if I could prove half of what I could tell you.'

The American folded his brawny arms and leaned back on his chair. 'Proof is for the courtroom, my friend. I'm a detective, remember? This is for my own private casebook.'

I told him nearly everything. When I had finished his face adopted a lugubrious expression and he nodded sagely. 'Well, I can certainly suck a bit of that.'

'That's good,' I sighed, 'but my tits are getting a little sore right now, babe.

If you've got questions, how about you save them till next time. I'd like to take a little nap.'

Shields stood up. 'I'll be back tomorrow. But just one question for now: this guy from Crowcass '

'Belinsky?'

'Belinsky, yeah. How come that he quit the game before the period was up?'

'Your guess is as good as mine.'

'Better maybe.' He shrugged. 'I'll ask around. Our relations with the Intelligence boys have improved since this Berlin thing. The American Military Governor has told them and us that we need to present a united front in case the Soviets try the same thing here.'

'What Berlin thing?' I said. 'In case they try what here?'

Shields frowned. 'You don't know about that? No, of course, you wouldn't, would you?'

'Look, my wife is in Berlin; hadn't you better tell me what's happened?'

He sat down again, only on the edge of the chair, which added to his obvious discomfort. 'The Soviets have imposed a complete military blockade on Berlin,' he said. 'They're not letting anything in or out of the Zone. So we're supplying the city by plane. Happened the day your friend got his own personal airlift. 24

June.' He smiled thinly. 'It's kind of tense up there from what I hear. Lots of folk think that there's going to be one almighty great showdown between us and the Russkies. Me, I wouldn't be at all surprised. We should have kicked their asses a long time ago. But we're not about to abandon Berlin, you can depend on it. Provided everybody keeps their heads, we should get through it all right.'

Shields lit a cigarette and put it between my lips. 'I'm sorry about your wife,' he said. 'You been married long?'

'Seven years.' I said. 'What about you? Are you married?'

He shook his head. 'I guess I never met the right girl. Do you mind me asking: has it worked out all right for you both? You being a detective and all.'

I thought for a minute. 'Yes,' I said, 'it's worked out just fine.'

Mine was the only occupied bed in the hospital. That night a barge slipping down the canal woke me with its bovine-sounding horn, and then abandoned me to stare sleeplessly at the dark as the echo of it fled into eternity like the bray of the last trump. Staring into the void of the pitch-black darkness, my whispered breathing serving only to remind me of my own mortality, it seemed that, seeing nothing, I could see beyond to what was most tangible: death itself, a lean, moth-eaten figure shrouded in heavy black velvet, ever ready to press the silent, chloroformed pad over the victim's nose and mouth, and to carry him to a waiting black sedan to some dreadful zone and DP camp where darkness never ends and whence no one ever escapes. As light returned to press against the window bars, so too did courage, although I knew that Death's Ivans held no high regard for those who met them without fear. Whether a man is ready to die or not, his requiem always sounds the same.

It was several days before Shields returned to the hospital. This time he was accompanied by two other men who from their haircuts and well-fed faces I took to be Americans. Like Shields they wore loudly cut suits. But their faces were older and wiser. Bing Crosby types with briefcases, pipes and emotions restricted to their supercilious eyebrows. Lawyers, or investigators. Or Corps.

Shields handled the introductions.

'This is Major Breen,' he said, indicating the older of the two men. 'And this is Major Medlinskas.'

Investigators then. But for which organization?

'What are you,' I said, 'the medical students?'

Shields grinned uncertainly. 'They'd like to ask you a few questions. I'll help with the translating.'

'Tell them I'm feeling a lot better, and thank them for the grapes. And perhaps one of them could fetch me the pot.'

Shields ignored me. They drew up three chairs and sat down like a team of judges at a dog show, with Shields nearest to me. Briefcases were opened, and notepads produced.

'Maybe I should have my twister here.'

'Is that really necessary?' said Shields.

'You tell me. Only I look at these two and I don't think they're a couple of American tourists who want to know the best places in Vienna to nudge a pretty girl.'

Shields translated my concern to the other two, the older of whom grunted and said something about criminals.

'The Major says that this is not a criminal matter,' reported Shields. 'But if you want a lawyer, one will be fetched.'

'If this is not a criminal matter, then how come I'm in a military hospital?'

'You were wearing handcuffs when they picked you out of that car,' sighed Shields. 'There was a pistol on the floor and a machine-gun in the trunk. They weren't about to take you to the maternity hospital.'

'All the same, I don't like it. Don't think that this bandage on my head gives you the right to treat me like an idiot. Who are these people anyway? They look like spies to me. I can recognize the type. I can smell the invisible ink on their fingers. Tell them that. Tell them that people from CIC and Crowcass give me an acid stomach on account of the fact that I trusted one of their people before and got my fingers clipped. Tell them that I wouldn't be lying here now if it wasn't for an American agent called Belinsky.'

'That's what they want to talk to you about.'

'Yeah? Well maybe if they were to put away those notebooks I'd feel a little easier.'

They seemed to understand this. They shrugged simultaneously and returned the notebooks to the briefcases.

'One more thing,' I said. 'I'm an experienced interrogator myself. Remember that. If I start to get the impression that I'm being rinsed and stacked for criminal charges then the interview will be over.'

The older man, Breen, shifted in his chair and clasped his hands across his knee. It didn't make him look any cuter. When he spoke, his German wasn't as bad as I had imagined it would be. 'I don't see any objections to that,' he said quietly.

And then it began. The major asked most of the questions, while the younger man nodded and occasionally interrupted in his bad German to ask me to clarify a remark. For the best part of two hours I answered or parried their questions, only refusing to reply directly on a couple of occasions when it seemed to me that they had stepped across the line of our agreement. Gradually, however, I perceived that most of their interest in me lay in the fact that neither the 970th CIC in Germany, nor the 430th CIC in Austria knew anything about a John Belinsky. Nor indeed was there a John Belinsky attached, however tenuously, to the Central Registry of War Crimes and Security Suspects of the United States Army. The military police had no one by that name; nor the army. There was however a John Belinsky in the Air Force, but he was nearly fifty; and the Navy had three John Belinskys, all of whom were at sea. Which was just how I felt.