A Quiet Flame Read online

  “I suppose there is a doglike quality about you,” she said.

  I finished raking the lock.

  “Sure. I’m fond of children and I’m loyal to my family, when I have one. Just don’t hang a little barrel of brandy around my neck unless you expect me to drink it.”

  My voice was full of bravado. I was trying to stop her from being scared. In truth, I was just as nervous as she was. More so, probably. When you’d seen as many people killed as I had, you know how easy it is to get killed.

  “Did you bring those flashlights?”

  She opened her bag to reveal a bicycle lamp and a little hand dynamo you had to keep squeezed to make it light. I took the bicycle lamp.

  “Don’t switch on until we’re inside,” I told her. I opened the door and poked my muzzle inside the hotel. It wasn’t the one on my face. It was the one on my gun.

  We went inside, our footsteps echoing on the cheap marble floor like those of two ghosts uncertain about which part of the building to go and haunt. There was a strong smell of mildew and damp. I switched on the bicycle lamp, illuminating a double-height hallway. There was no one about. I put away my gun.

  “What are we looking for?” she whispered.

  “Boxes. Packing cases. Filing cabinets. Anything that might contain records of immigration. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to dump them here when this place closed down.”

  I offered Anna my hand, but she brushed it off and laughed.

  “I stopped being afraid of the dark when I was seven,” she said. “These days I even manage to put myself to bed.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” I said.

  “It’s odd of me, I know. But somehow I feel safer that way.”

  We walked the length of the building and found four large dormitories on the ground floor. One of these still had beds, and I counted two hundred fifty, which, if the upper floors were the same, meant that as many as five thousand people had once lived in the building.

  “My poor parents,” said Anna. “I had no idea that it was like this.”

  “It’s not so bad. Believe me, the German idea of resettlement was a lot worse than this.”

  In the communal washrooms between the dormitories were sixteen square sinks as big as a car door. And beyond the farthest washroom was a locked door. The padlock, which was a new one, told me we were probably in the right place. Someone had felt obliged to secure what was on the other side of the door with a lock superior to the ones on the gate and on the front door. But new or not, this padlock yielded just as easily to my gaucho’s knife. I pushed the door open with the sole of my shoe and shone the light inside.

  “I think we found what we’re looking for,” I said, although it was evident that the real work was only just beginning. There were dozens of filing cabinets—as many as a hundred—in five ranks, one in front of the other, like tightly dressed lines of soldiers, so that it was impossible to open one without moving the one in front of it.

  “This is going to take hours,” said Anna.

  “It looks as though we are going to spend the night together, after all.”

  “Then you’d better make the most of it,” she said. She put the lamp down on the floor, faced the cabinet at the head of the first rank, and pointed at the cabinet heading the second. “Here, you look in that one and I’ll look in this one.”

  I blew some dust off. A mistake. There was too much dust. It filled the air and made us cough. I pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet and started to riffle through names beginning with the letter Z. “Zhabotinsky, Zhukov, Zinoviev. These are all Z’s. You don’t suppose the one behind this one could be the Y cabinet, do you? Like Y for Yrigoyen, Youngblood, and Yagubsky?”

  I slammed the drawer shut and we moved that cabinet out of the way of the one behind. Even before I had wrestled it completely clear, Anna had hauled the top drawer of the next cabinet open. There was more strength in her arm than she realized. Or possibly she was suddenly too excited to know her own strength. Either way, she managed to pull the entire drawer completely out of the cabinet and, narrowly missing her toes and mine, it thudded on the marble floor with the sound of a door closing in some deep pit of hell.

  “Do you want to try that again?” I asked. “Only I don’t think they heard it in the Casa Rosada.”

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “Let’s hope not.”

  Anna was already kneeling in front of the fallen drawer and, with the light from the little hand dynamo she was holding, examining the contents. “You were right,” she cried excitedly. “These are the Y’s.”

  I picked the bicycle lamp off the floor and trained the beam on her hands.

  Then she said, “I don’t believe it,” and removed one thin file from the pack. “Yagubsky.”

  Even in the semidarkness I could see the tears in her eyes. Her voice was choked, too.

  “It seems that you can work miracles after all, Saint Bernhard.”

  Then she opened the file.

  It was empty.

  ANNA STARED at the empty file for a long moment. Then she flung it aside angrily and, sinking back on her haunches, let out an enormous sigh. “So much for your miracle,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I didn’t want to be a saint, anyway.”

  After a while, I went to find the empty file. I picked it up and looked at it more closely. It was empty, all right. But the file wasn’t without information. There was a date on the plain manila cover.

  “When did you say they disappeared?”

  “January 1947.”

  “This file is dated March 1947. And look. Underneath their names are written the words ‘Judio’ and ‘Judia.’ Jew and Jewess. And there’s the small matter of a rubber stamp in red ink.”

  Anna looked at it. “D12,” she said. “What’s D12?”

  “There’s another date and a signature inside the stamp. The signature is illegible. But the date is clear enough. April 1947.”

  “Yes, but what is D12?”

  “I have no idea.”

  I went back to the cabinet and removed another file. This one belonged to a John Yorath. From Wales. And it was full of information. Details of entry visas, details of John Yorath’s medical history, a record of his stay at the Hotel de Inmigrantes, a copy of a cédula, everything. But not Jewish. And no “D12” stamp on the cover.

  “They were here,” said Anna excitedly. “This proves that they were here.”

  “I think it also proves that they’re not here any longer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Clearly, however, they were arrested. And then deported, perhaps.”

  “I told you. We’ve never heard from them. Not since January 1947.”

  “Then perhaps they were imprisoned.” Warming to my theme, I said, “You’re a lawyer, Anna. Tell me about the prisons in this country.”

  “Let’s see. There’s the prison at Parque Ameghino, here in the city. And the Villa Devoto, of course. Where Perón imprisons his political enemies. Then there’s San Miguel, where regular criminals are sent. Where else? Yes, a military jail on Martín García Island, in the River Plate. That’s where Perón himself was imprisoned when he was originally deposed, in October 1945. Yes, yes, you might imprison a great many people on Martín García.” She thought for a moment. “But wait a minute. There’s nowhere more remote than Neuquén prison in the Andean foothills. You hear stories about Neuquén. But almost nothing is known about it except that the people who are sent there never return. Do you really think it’s possible? That they could be in jail? All this time?”

  “I don’t know, Anna.” I waved at the regiment of filing cabinets ranked in front of us. “But it’s just possible we’ll find the answers in one of these.”

  “You really know how to show a girl a good time, Gunther.” She stood up and went over to the next cabinet and drew the drawer open.

 
AN HOUR OR SO before dawn, exhausted and grimy with dust, and having found nothing else of any interest, we decided to call it a night.

  We stayed too long. I knew that because as we came back into the front hall, someone switched on the electric lights. Anna uttered a little stifled scream. I wasn’t exactly happy about this turn of events myself. Especially as the person who had switched on the lights was pointing a gun at us. Not that he was much of a person. It was easy to see why Marcello had talked about a skeleton staff. I’ve seen healthier-looking men in coffins. He was about five feet, six inches tall, with lank, greasy, gray hair, eyebrows that looked like two halves of a mustache that had been separated for its own good, and a rat’s narrow, recreant features. He wore a cheap suit, a vest that looked like a rag in a mechanic’s greasy hands, no socks, and no shoes. There was a bottle in his coat pocket that was probably his breakfast and, in the corner of his mouth, a length of drooping tobacco ash that had once been a cigarette. As he spoke, it fell onto the floor.

  “What are you doing here?” he said in a voice made indistinct with phlegm and alcohol and a lack of teeth. In fact, there was just one tooth on his prominent upper jaw: a front tooth that looked like the last pin standing in a game of skittles.

  “I’m a policeman,” I said. “I needed to look at an old file urgently. I’m afraid there was no time to go through proper procedures.”

  “Is that right?” He nodded at Anna. “And what’s her story?”

  “None of your goddamn business,” I said. “Look, take a look at my ID, will you? It’s just like I told you.”

  “You’re no cop. Not with that accent.”

  “I’m secret police. SIDE. I’m one of Colonel Montalbán’s people.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “We both report to Rodolfo Freude. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?”

  “Matter of fact, I have. It was him who gave me my orders. Explicit orders. He says no one. And I mean no one. No one gets in this place without the express authority, in writing, of the president himself.” He grinned. “Have you got a letter from the president?”

  He crept forward and patted me down, his fingers quickly turning my pockets inside out. He grinned. “Thought not.”

  Up close, I wasn’t inclined to change my impression of him. He looked inferior and second-rate. But there was nothing second-rate about the gun in his hand. That was special. A .38 Police Special, with a two-inch barrel and a nice bright blue finish. It was the only thing about him that looked like it was in perfect working order. It had crossed my mind to tackle him while he was searching my pockets. But the Police Special quickly changed it for me. He found my gun and tossed it away. He even found the little stiletto in my breast pocket. But he didn’t find the gaucho knife hidden under my belt in the small of my back.

  He backed away and patted Anna down, mostly on her breasts, which seemed to give him an idea.

  “You,” he told her. “Pretty lady. Take off your jacket and your shirt.”

  She stared at him with dumb insolence and, when nothing happened, he got handy with the gun, pressing it under her chin. “You’d better do it, pretty lady, or I’ll blow your head off.”

  “Do as he says, Anna. He means it.”

  The man grinned his one-toothed grin and stood back to enjoy the sight of her undressing. “The brassiere, too. Take it off. Let’s see those titties.”

  Anna looked at me, desperately. I nodded back at her. She unhooked her bra and let it fall onto the ground.

  The man licked his lips, staring at her bared breasts. “Now those are nice,” he said. “Real nice titties. Nicest titties I’ve seen in a while.”

  I pressed my spine back a little against my belt, feeling the big sheath knife that was there and wondering if I even knew how to throw a knife—especially one that looked as if it belonged on a butcher’s chopping block.

  The man with one tooth reached forward and tried to take one of Anna’s nipples between his forefinger and thumb, but she shrank away from his touch behind the shield of her forearms.

  “Stand still,” he said, twitching nervously. “Stand still or I’ll shoot you, pretty lady.”

  Anna closed her eyes and let him take hold of her nipple. At first he just kneaded it with his fingers, like a man rolling tobacco. But then he started to squeeze, hard. Her face told me that much. So did his. He was smiling with sadistic pleasure, enjoying the pain he was inflicting on her. Anna bore it silently for a while, but that only seemed to make him do it harder, until she begged him to stop. He did. But only to squeeze her other nipple.

  By now I had the knife in my hand. I slid it up inside the forearm of my sleeve. There was too much distance between the two of us to risk attacking him with the blade in my hand. Most likely he would have shot me, and then raped and killed her. It was too much gun to take a chance with. But throwing the knife was risky, too.

  I let the knife slide into the palm of my hand and gripped the blade like a hammer.

  Anna sank onto her knees, whimpering with pain, only he kept hold of her, his face contorted with ghastly pleasure, enjoying every second of the agony that was written in her face.

  “You bastard,” she said.

  That was my cue, and with a small step forward and both arms pointed straight at the target, I threw the knife, putting my whole hip into it to add to the power of my throw. I aimed at his side, just below his outstretched hand that was still twisting her nipple.

  He cried out. The knife appeared to hit him in the ribs, but then it was in his hand. He let it go and it fell onto the ground. At the same time, he shot at me and missed. I felt the bullet zip over my head. I rolled quickly forward, expecting to find myself facing the two-inch barrel, or worse. Instead I found myself staring at a man who was now on all fours, coughing blood onto the ground between his hands and then curling up into a ball, holding his side. I glanced at the knife and, seeing the blood on the blade, guessed that it must have pierced his side to a depth of several inches before he had plucked it out of his torso.

  My close proximity seemed to deflect him from the pain and distress of his wound. Twisting his whole body to one side, he tried to shoot again, only this time without lifting his forearm from the stab wound in his side.

  “Look out,” yelled Anna.

  But I was already over him, wrestling the gun from the grip of his bloody hand even as it fired harmlessly into the ceiling. Anna screamed. I punched him hard on the side of the head, but the fight had already gone out of him. I tiptoed away from him, trying to avoid the pool of his blood that was spreading on the floor like an expanding red balloon. He wasn’t dead yet. But I could tell there was no saving him. The blade had gone through a major artery. Just like a bayonet. From the amount of blood on the floor, it was clear he would be dead in minutes.

  “Are you all right?” I picked up Anna’s brassiere and handed it to her.

  “Yes,” she whispered. Her hands were cupping her breasts, and her eyes were full of tears. She was looking at him, almost as if she pitied him.

  “Put your clothes on,” I said. “We have to leave. Now. Someone might have heard those shots.”

  I put his gun under my belt, holstered my own, put the flashlights in Anna’s bag and picked up the two knives. Then I glanced around for anything the cops might get their teeth into. A button. A hank of hair. An earring. The little spots of color on a canvas, like Georges Seurat, that Ernst Gennat had been fond of. But there was nothing. Just him, wheezing his last breaths away. A dead body that didn’t know it yet.

  “What about him?” asked Anna, buttoning her shirt. “We can’t just leave him here.”

  “He’s finished,” I said. “By the time an ambulance gets here he’ll be dead.” I took hold of her arm and moved her smartly toward the door, then switched out the light. “With any luck, by the time anyone finds him, the rats will have spoiled the evidence.”

  Anna took my hand off her arm and switched the light on again. “I told you. I don’t like rat
s.”

  “Maybe you can flash a message in Morse code while you’re at it,” I said. “Just to make sure people know that there’s someone here.” But I left the light on.

  “He’s still a human being,” she said, going back to the body on the floor. Trying to keep her shoes out of the blood, she dropped down on her haunches and, shaking her head helplessly, she looked back at me as if begging for a clue about what to do next.

  The man twitched several times and then lay still.

  “I had a rather different impression,” I said.

  Crouching down beside her, I pressed my fingers hard under his ear and paused for the sake of verisimilitude.

  “Well?”

  “He’s dead,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “What do you want me to do, write out a death certificate?”

  “The poor man,” she whispered. Then she did something that struck me as an odd thing to do if you were a Jew: she crossed herself.

  “Speaking for myself, I’m glad the poor man’s dead. The poor man was going to rape and kill you. But not before the poor man killed me, probably. The poor man had it coming, if you ask me. Now, if you’re quite through grieving for the poor man, I’d like to get out of here before the cops or any of the poor man’s friends show up and wonder if this murder weapon I’m holding in my hand makes me a suspect. In case you’ve forgotten, they have the death penalty for murder in Argentina.”

  Anna glanced at the gaucho knife and nodded.

  I went to the door and switched out the light. She followed me outside. At the gate in the fence, I told her to wait a minute. I ran to the edge of the north dock and hurled the knife as far as I could into the River Plate. As soon as I heard the evidence hit the water, I felt better. I’ve seen what lawyers can do with evidence.

  Together we walked back to where I had left my car, in front of the railway station. The sun was coming up. Another day was dawning for everyone except the man with one tooth who was now lying dead on the floor of the Immigrants’ Hotel. I felt very tired. In every way it had been a long night.