A Small Death in Lisbon

Their eyes connected and achieved an understanding.

'In the event of unlikely disaster…' Felsen allowed the sentence to drift.

'What I have in mind…' said Lehrer, 'we're going to open a bank, a Portuguese-owned bank.'

'Portuguese-owned?'

'If it comes to it… the completion of the sandwich, I mean. I can assure you the Allies will be vengeful. No German assets will survive in Europe. This bank will be Portuguese-owned with significant, but very discreet, German shareholders.'

'And who are they going to be?'

'You and me for the moment,' said Lehrer. 'This is our private enterprise. No one, and certainly not that Prussian idiot, should know about it.'

'Is this an SS thing?'

'In a manner of speaking,' said Lehrer, trying to get a clearer reading from Felsen. 'But I hope you understand the importance of Abrantes in this. He must be reliable… he must be a friend.'

'He's a friend,' said Felsen, holding Lehrer's adamantine look.

'Good,' said Lehrer, easing himself back into his chair. 'Now all we need is a name. A good Portuguese name. What does "felsen" translate as in Portuguese?'

'Rochedo rocha.'

'Rocha. That sounds reliable, but I think we should have something big and encompassing to go with it.'

'The sea is probably the most important Portuguese icon,' said Felsen.

'What's "sea" in Portuguese?'

'Mar.'

'No, no. Mar e Rocha sounds like a bad restaurant.'

'Oceano e Rocha?'

'I think that could be it. Banco de Oceano e Rocha,' said Lehrer, looking out into the gardens. 'I'd put my money in that.'

Chapter XVIII

1st October 1942, central Berlin Eva Brucke sat in the study in her apartment. She smoked cigarette after cigarette and took sips of brandy from a glass she held with white hands in which she could see the blue veins working clearly. Her face had so little colour in it she thought her teeth might be visible through her cheeks if she stood in front of the light. Her insides? She didn't have any insides. She felt like a plucked and drawn bird, freezing too.

There were two of them in the apartment, nameless of course, Hansel and Gretel, Tristan and Isolde. The two were practised, expert at not being there-quieter than insects but not so silent that the tension in the rooms became palpable. They'd been at it around Berlin for months and this was their last stop.

Eva had been getting ready to go out, had just got to the point of applying a nub end of a lipstick to her mouth when there'd been a knock at the door, a polite knock. She put the lipstick away. She didn't want to fluff it and break up the valuable nub end. The next knock was a roll of thunder, a heart-stopping pounding on the door followed by the dread three-syllable word that could jelly the thighs of a Berlin bartender.

'Gestapo!'

It was loud enough that the two in the back of the apartment would have heard and hidden themselves. She had no time.

'I'm coming,' she said, getting it out clear first time with no croaks and adding a slightly irritable intonation. The pounding continued. She shrugged into her overcoat and opened the door.

'Yes,' she said, efficient, a slight divot of a frown on her forehead. 'I was just on my way out.'

The two men pushed past her into the living room. They both wore black leather coats and black hats which neither of them removed. One was thin. The other a brute.

'Come in,' she said.

'Your papers?'

She took them out of her handbag and handed them over, straight-armed, on the confident side of impertinent.

'Eva Brucke?' said the thin one, not reading the papers.

'I think you'll find that's who I am.'

'You've been reported.'

'For what and by whom?'

'Harbouring illegals,' he said. 'Your neighbours.'

'I don't have any neighbours, I'm surrounded by rubble.'

'We're not necessarily talking about people who live next door. Neighbours could be those who overlook from the back, for instance.'

'They were bombed out last week,' she said.

'You don't mind if we have a quick look around.'

'I was on my way out,' she said, verging on the desperate.

'It won't take long,' said the thin one, sniffing the air.

'As long as you don't mind giving me the names of the neighbours, the names of your superior officers so that I can report those neighbours for nosiness when your superiors come to my club tonight, and your names too.'

'So that what? So that you can report us too?' asked the brute, hanging his face in front of her.

'Muller,' said the thin one pointing to his own chest, 'and Schmidt. Do you want to write those down? Can we get on with it now?'

'The back of the apartment is still unsafe from the bombing. I will not be responsible if you hurt yourselves. And if a wall falls out because of your carelessness and I'm left to freeze this winter I'll…'

'…sleep in this room,' finished Schmidt, his eyes gone sleepy, his nose broken and bent to the right.

'No. I will ask my friends, your superiors at the RHSA, to pay for the reconstruction.'

'In a pig's arse,' said Schmidt crudely. Nobody was sure what he meant.

They stared into her. She'd overdone it on the haughtiness and the name-dropping. Nerves. Muller gave her back her papers.

'Perhaps I'll go first,' he said. 'If Schmidt's hundred kilos starts slipping he'll take the whole of the side of the building away with him.'

He smiled as if his mouth was a recent cut, turned away from her and sniffed the air again. She didn't like him. He seemed a little too intelligent for Gestapo. What happened to the dolts, or did they all get sent to Stalingrad?

Eva sat down in the living room and jammed her hands into her coat pockets. Schmidt leaned against the door jamb and watched Muller's progress down the corridor.

'Tell him it's the last two rooms he has to watch out for. He'll feel it in the floorboards.'

Schmidt glanced at her, nodded and looked back without saying a word. She wanted to smoke but didn't dare take her hands out of her pockets. She knew from the state of her stomach they'd be shaking.

'He smells them first,' said Schmidt after a few minutes.

'What?'

'Jews,' said Schmidt. 'He says they smell of rancid cheese.'

'Tell him I've got some in my kitchen.'

'Jews?' he asked, as a matter of fact.

'Cheese,' said Eva. 'I don't want him to smash the place up just because I've got a piece of Gruyere somebody gave me six weeks ago.'

'Doesn't it keep?' he asked. 'Gruyere.'

'Where do they find you people?'

He jolted himself off the door jamb and moved across the room at an alarming pace, as if pleasantries were over and the usual tools were to be applied. He clamped his meaty hands on to the arms of her chair and leaned his face into hers so that she could see each nascent bristle above his top lip.

'You've got nice legs,' he said.

'Unlike your manner.'

'I hope we get you down at Prinz Albrechtstrasse,' he said, glancing down at her lap and then back to her eyes. 'We can do anything we like down there.'

'Schmidt!' shouted Muller, from the back of the apartment. Eva jumped. 'Get down here!'

Schmidt smiled and pushed himself away from the chair. He went down the corridor. Eva pressed one of her hands, still in her pocket, between her legs and clamped her thighs in case she pissed herself. Her bowels were trembling and liquid.

'Take hold of my belt,' said Muller.

'This floor's completely fucked,' said Schmidt, with a construction engineer's precision.

Eva forced herself out of the chair and down the corridor.

'For God's sake be careful,' she said. 'It's a seven-metre drop to the street. The fall will kill you if the rubble doesn't.'

'She's concerned for you, Muller.'

Muller strained forward, craning his neck around the door. Schmidt held on, smiling, and winking at Eva.

'I think she must like them slim,' he added.