Even here the threat of deportation to a concentration camp would always be present.
Four staff cars lined the road out front, any of which would do nicely for Louis and himself. All had been requisitioned from the Occupied and painted with the regulation Wehrmacht camouflage so as to let folks know who was behind the wheel.
Two large white-domed, circular rooms anchored what would once have been the Salle des Fêtes, the reception hall, but before he got there, steps led up to a broad terrace and then an Art Deco door, with an etched glass fountain just like the one Louis had been on about. Yet another female watcher opened the door, but this one was a BDM, one of the Federation of German Milch Cows, the Bund Deutscher Mädel, the League of the same. Earnest girls from home doing their duty in uniforms so grey the French had taken to calling them les souris grises-the grey mice.
A lisle-stockinged, tight-skirted leg was lifted as a black brogue was stamped and the regulation salute and Heil Hitler given. Even a smile wouldn’t work, though he’d try.
Ach, thought Dorett Lühr, no return salute had been received from this one, and the faded blue eyes that might at times be full of mirth seemed only to be mocking her. Shrapnel scars from that other war were there, but so too was that of a more recent slash from the left eye to chin. A duelling scar? she wondered, trembling at the thought, for he was still handsome, if in a rough and incredibly virile way. ‘Bitte, Herr Detektivinspektor, you are to follow me.’
‘Actually, Herr Hauptmann und Detektiv Aufsichtsbeamter would be better if you want to use my rank from that war we lost, or simply Herr Detektivinspektor der Kriminalpolizei-i.e., der Kripo, ja? Der Geheime Staatspolizei.’
The Gestapo. . That did it. She shuddered nicely, thought Kohler, and would no longer give trouble. There wasn’t a sign of a roulette wheel, baccarat table, or any other such temptation. So puritan was the casino, the Salle des Fêtes, of gymnasium size, was barren of everything but a huge swastika, ein Hakenkreuz, that was draped above the regulation portrait of the Führer.
Here the internees on arrival would have had to line up in front of the one suitcase each had been allowed to bring, this being laid open and the contents spread out for inspection under all eyes, especially those of their fellow inmates. And wasn’t it a marvel how utterly thoughtless the Wehrmacht could be?
Right behind the Salle des Fêtes, there was the Grand Hall, and here Red Cross parcels were being counted, ticked off, and piled to the ceiling: American to the left, British to the right. At desks nearby, NCOs busied themselves lest they experience life on the Russian Front. BDMs hustled files or typed as though their lives depended on it. Always it was papers, papers with Berlin, and always he had to ask himself: With a war on, who the hell had the time to read them?
A corridor, totally barren but for its hurrying BDMs, led first to the censor’s offices-letters and postcards being pored over in there and blacked out, of course-and then to one of the former smoking rooms where leather club chairs would once have offered solid comfort, brandy, and cigars but now held the Spartan desk and armless chairs of the local Himmler, the camp’s acting Kommandant, Col. Löthar Jundt of Mannheim, Baden-Württemburg.
Not a moment was lost in pleasantries.
‘Kohler, it’s about time! They are terrified another of them will be killed. Ach, they don’t express it in so many words, but one can sense it. They duck back into their rooms in the Vittel-Palace, exchange rapidly downcast glances when passing one another in the corridors or on the staircases, and when I encounter a babbling group in one of their rooms, they all shut up well before I am even seen. Verdammte Amerikanische Kaninchen, die Schlampen have lookouts posted. I’m certain of it!’
Damned American rabbits, the sluts. And trust the Wehrmacht brass to overlook the simple fact that the sound of jackboots on marble floors might have been overheard. ‘And when they’re all together, Colonel?’
A fist was clenched. ‘They’re never all together. They refuse to eat in their dining room. “It’s too cold. It’s pathetic,” they yell at me. I ask you, Kohler, what is the matter with those people? Declaring war on us, their friends? I’ve a second cousin in New Jersey, an aunt in Dayton, Ohio, who is married to a banker, a sister to an officer in that Navy of theirs? Have the Jews got at them and destroyed a once fine nation?’
Uh-oh. ‘And the British internees, Colonel?’
‘A world of difference. They come out of their rooms to speak to me in a language I cannot understand, of course, but one can tell.’
The side of a nose that must be accustomed to it was tapped with a stiffened forefinger that was now being wagged for emphasis.
‘They gather in their dining room for meals, and the noise, it is unbelievable. Such joy, such laughter.’
‘Until you enter that room?’
Kohler. . What was it he had been told about him? Insubordination? A former member of a Himmelfahrtskommando that had dealt with unexploded bombs and shells in that other war, one of the trip-to-heaven boys, the assignment earned through having absented himself from duty. A girl. . An affair of the heart. Over just such a thing had he disobeyed his orders, young though he must have been at the time. A swollen testicle, was it, the girl playing nursemaid to him, a fever as well and fear of Army surgeons? But there had been other infractions since, far too many of them, especially that ‘duelling’ scar an SS rawhide whip had given him for he and that partner of his having pointed the finger of truth.
‘The British, Colonel?’ came the reminder.
‘Naturally they, too, are worried, but so far the deaths haven’t been one of theirs. I want this matter settled. Berlin. . Need I say more?’
A cigarette had been left to waste its life in the ashtray. ‘Colonel, your predecessor mentioned a bell ringer. . ’
The head was tossed.
‘A nothing monk, a stroller about town in cloth. He comes and goes, and my predecessor let him, since he apparently has a calming effect on them. They love him, those women, if I can use that word with such as him. They are happiest in his presence, and he, I must say, adores them. Lieber Gott, he’s like a fat little dog! His is but to serve and lick, and theirs but to receive. I’m sure he knows them all by name. Both the Americans, who seem to favour him most with presents, and the British who worship him.’
This was getting deeper and deeper. ‘An herbalist?’
Kohler had yet to sit down, so gut, ja gut. Kept on his feet would be best.
‘You might call him that. If not making the order’s Host then it’s the soap those people sell on the schwarzer Markt-I know they do!’
The marché noir, the black market. .
‘And if not those, his herbs, potions, and honey. The hands, the feet, the face, the skin. Frankly, I have no use for him or for the French. They still encourage such people. When the Führer has time, I am certain even that matter will be settled.’
And uh-oh again. ‘A warm brother, Colonel?’
‘That is putting it politely. Ein Arschficker, Kohler. I’m certain of it.’