A Quiet Flame Read online

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you like beef?”

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t have come,” she said quietly. “I’ve just had some bad news. About a friend of mine.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “She was an actress,” said Anna. “Well, that’s what she called herself. Frankly, I had my doubts about that. But she was a good person. She’d had a hard life, I think. Much harder than she’d ever have admitted to. And now she’s dead. She couldn’t have been more than thirty-six.” Anna smiled ruefully. “I guess it doesn’t get much harder than that, does it?”

  “Isabel Pekerman,” I said.

  Anna looked shocked. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Never you mind. Just tell me what happened.”

  “After you telephoned this morning, I got a call from Hannah. A mutual friend. Hannah has the apartment upstairs from Isabel. It’s in the Once. That’s the barrio officially known as Balvanera. Historically, it’s where the city’s Jews used to live. Still do, quite a few of them. Anyway, she was found dead this morning. By Hannah. She was in the bath with her wrists cut, as if she’d committed suicide.”

  “ ‘As if’?”

  “Isabel was a survivor. She wasn’t the suicidal type. Not at all. Not after everything she’d been through. And certainly not while there was any hope that her two sisters might still be alive. You see—”

  “I know. She told me about the sisters. As a matter of fact, she told me last night. She certainly didn’t look like someone who was going home to cut her wrists.”

  “You were with her?”

  “She telephoned me at my hotel and we arranged to meet in a place called the Club Seguro. She told me everything. Your doubts about her profession were quite correct, I think. But she was a good person. I liked her, anyway. I liked her just about enough to have gone to bed with her. I wish I had. Maybe she’d still be alive.”

  “Why didn’t you? Go to bed with her.”

  “All sorts of reasons. Yesterday was a hell of a day.”

  “I called you twice. But you weren’t there.”

  “I was arrested. Briefly.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a long story. Like Isabel’s. Mostly I didn’t go back home with her on account of you, Anna. That’s what I told myself this morning, anyway. I was feeling quite proud of myself for having resisted the temptation to go to bed with her. Until you told me she was dead.”

  “So you think I’m right, that she might have been murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would anyone kill Isabel?”

  “Being the kind of actress she was is not without risk,” I said. “But that’s not why she was killed. I imagine it had something to do with me. Maybe her phone was tapped. Maybe my phone is tapped. Maybe she was being followed. Maybe I’m being followed. I don’t know.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “I’ve a very good idea who issued the orders. But it’s best you don’t know any more than I’ve told you. This is quite dangerous enough already.”

  “Then we have to go to the police.”

  “No, we don’t.” I grinned, amused at her naiveté. “No, angel, we definitely do not go to the police.”

  “Are you suggesting they had something to do with it?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything at all. Look, Anna, I came here to tell you that I think I might have found out something. Something important about Directive Eleven. A place on a map. I had this stupid, romantic notion that you and I might catch the night train to Tucumán and go and take a look at this place. But that was before I heard about Isabel Pekerman. Now I think it’s best I don’t say any more. About anything.”

  “And you think that trying to shield me from something like some naive schoolgirl doesn’t make you sound stupid and romantic?” she said.

  “Believe me. It’s safer that I don’t say any more.”

  She sighed. “Well, this should be an interesting lunch. With you not saying anything.”

  Lon Chaney came back with the wine. He opened it and we went through the pantomime of me tasting it and him pouring it. As absurd as a Japanese tea ceremony. As soon as he had filled Anna’s glass, she picked it up and drained it. He smiled awkwardly, and started to refill it. Anna took the bottle away from him, poured it herself, and drank a second glass as quickly as the first.

  “Well, what will we talk about now?” she asked.

  “Take it easy with that,” I said.

  The waiter went away. He could sense trouble coming.

  “We could talk about football, I suppose,” she said. “Or politics. Or what’s on at the cinema. But you should start. You’re better at avoiding certain subjects than I am. After all, I imagine you’ve had a lot more practice.” She poured herself some more wine. “I know, let’s talk about the war. Better than that, let’s talk about your war. What were you, anyway? Gestapo? SS? Did you work in a concentration camp? Did you kill any Jews? Did you kill lots of Jews? Are you here because you’re a Nazi war criminal and because there’s a price on your head? Will they hang you if they ever catch up with you?” She lit a cigarette nervously. “How am I doing so far, not talking about what we came here to talk about? By the way, what was it that made you take me on as a client, Bernie? Guilt? Are you trying to make yourself feel better about what you did then by helping me now. Is that it? Yes, I can see how that might work.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she bit her lip as if she was putting her whole body into each stroke of the verbal whip she was wielding.

  “The SS man with a conscience. It’s quite a story when you think about it. A little corny, but then real stories often are, don’t you agree? The Jewess and the German officer. Someone should write an opera about it. One of those avant-garde ones, with miserable songs, minor keys, and bum notes. Only I do think that the baritone who plays you should be someone who can’t really sing. Or better still, won’t. That’s his leitmotif. And hers? Something impotent, repetitive, and hopeless.”

  Anna picked up her glass, only this time she stood up when she had finished it. “Thanks for lunch.”

  “Sit down,” I said. “You’re behaving like a child.”

  “Maybe that’s because you’re treating me like one.”

  “Maybe I am, but I’d rather that than see your body on a slab in the police morgue. That’s my only real motif, Anna.”

  “Now you sound like my father. No, wait. I think you’re a little older than he is.”

  And then she left.

  I FINISHED what was left of the bottle and went to the Casa Rosada, to look through all the information Montalbán had given me about Old Comrades in Argentina. But there was nothing about a Hans Kammler. But then neither was there anything about Otto Skorzeny. Apparently, some old comrades were beyond suspicion. Later on, I telephoned Geller to let him know I was coming back to Tucumán and to ask if I might borrow his jeep.

  “Are you planning to visit Ricardo again?” he asked. “Because he still hasn’t quite forgiven me for telling you where he lives.” Geller laughed. “I don’t think he likes you.”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “By the way, you were asking about bastards who give us bastards a bad name. You’ll never guess who showed up here the other day. Otto Skorzeny.”

  “Is he working for Capri, too?”

  “That’s the funny thing. He’s not. At least, not according to my records, anyway.”

  “See if you can find out what he’s doing there,” I said. “And while you’re at it, see what you can find out about a man called Hans Kammler.”

  “Kammler? Never heard of him.”

  “He was a general in the SS, Pedro.”

  Geller groaned.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Why ever did I agree to the name Pedro?” he said. “Every time I hear it, I wince. It’s a peasant’s name. It makes me think I probably smell of horseshit.”

  “Not so as you�
��d notice, Pedro. Not in Tucumán. Everything in Tucumán smells of horseshit.”

  In the evening I drove to the railway station. As usual, the place was full of people, many of them Indians from Paraguay and Bolivia and easily identifiable in their colorful blankets and bowler hats. At first, I didn’t see her standing at the head of the Mitre line platform. She was wearing a sensible two-piece woolen suit, gloves, and a scarf. By her shapely leg was a small valise and in her hand was a ticket. She appeared to be waiting for me.

  “I was wondering when you were going to show up,” she said.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I might say that this is a free country, except that it’s not,” she said.

  “You really think you’re coming to Tucumán?”

  “That’s what it says on my ticket.”

  “I told you before. This is dangerous.”

  “My heart is in my mouth.” She shrugged. “Everything’s dangerous when you read the small print, Gunther. Sometimes it’s a good idea not to bring your glasses. Besides, these are my relatives, not yours. Always supposing you have such things as relatives.”

  “Didn’t I tell you? They found me under a rock.”

  “It figures. You have a number of rocklike qualities.”

  “Then I guess I can hardly stop you, angel.”

  “It might be fun to see you try.”

  “All right.” I let out a sigh. “I know when I’m beaten.”

  “Somehow I doubt that.”

  “Have you been to Tucumán before?”

  “I never saw the point of spending twenty-three hours on a train just to end up in a flea-bitten dump. That’s what everyone says, anyway. That there are just a couple of churches and what passes for a university.”

  “That, and a couple of million acres of sugarcane.”

  “You make it sound like I’ve been missing something.”

  “No, but I have.” I took her in my arms and kissed her. “I hope you’ve got a sweet tooth. A million acres is an awful lot of sugar.”

  “After what I said to you at lunchtime, I could use a little sweetening, don’t you think?”

  “You’ve got twenty-three hours to make it up to me.”

  “Then it’s lucky I brought some cards.”

  “We’d better get on the train.” I picked up her bag and we walked along the platform, past vending trolleys laden with food and drink for passengers to take on board. We bought as much as we could carry and found ourselves a compartment. Minutes later, the train started to move out of the station. But after half an hour we still weren’t going much faster than an old lady on a bicycle.

  “It’s no wonder it takes twenty-three hours,” I complained. “At these speeds.”

  “The British built the railways,” she explained. “Until Perón came along, they owned them, too.”

  “That doesn’t explain why they go so slowly.”

  “The railroads weren’t built for people,” she said. “They were built for the transportation of cattle.”

  “And here was me thinking that it was only the Germans who had mastered the art of transporting people like cattle.”

  “Hmm. Were you always this cynical?”

  “No. I used to be a twinkle in my father’s eye. You should have seen me then. I could light up a room from twenty feet.”

  “Your father sounds like quite a man.”

  “He had his turn.”

  “Ruthless as well as cynical. Like all SS men.”

  “How would you know? I’ll bet I’m the first SS man you ever met.”

  “I certainly never expected to like kissing one.”

  “I never expected to be one, that’s for sure. Do you want me to tell you about it? We’ve got plenty of time.”

  “What about our no-questions deal?”

  “No, I think it’s time you knew something about me. Just in case I get killed.”

  “You’re saying that just to try to scare me. Forget it. These days I even sleep with the light out.”

  “Do you want me to tell you, or not?”

  “I guess I can hardly walk out the door if I decide you don’t like me after all. Even at this speed. Go ahead. I can always play patience if I get bored listening.”

  “My brand of straight talk is strong stuff. It needs a little mixer. Like ginger ale or Indian tonic water.” I took a bottle of whiskey out of my bag and poured a measure in my one small glass. “Or some of this, perhaps.”

  “That’s quite strong for a mixer,” she said, sipping it like it was nitroglycerin.

  I lit two cigarettes and put one in her mouth. “It’s a strong story. Come on. Drink up. I can only tell it to you when you’re seeing double and I’m blowing smoke in your eyes. That way you won’t notice when I grow lots of hair on my face and my teeth get longer.”

  The train was leaving behind the suburbs of Buenos Aires. If only I could leave behind my own past as easily. A strong smell of seawater arrived through the open window. Gulls hovered in the blue sky close to the shore. The wheels rattled underneath the carriage floor like a six-eight march and, for a moment, I remembered the bands that had marched underneath the windows of the Adlon Hotel on the night of Monday, January 30, 1933. That was the day the world changed forever. The day Hitler was appointed chancellor of the Reich. I remembered how, as each band had neared Pariser Platz, where both the Adlon and the French Embassy were situated, they stopped whatever they had been playing and struck up with the old Prussian war song “We Mean to Beat the French.” That was the moment I realized that another European war was inevitable.

  “All Germans carry an image of Adolf Hitler inside them,” I said. “Even the ones like me, who hated Hitler and everything he stood for. This face with its tousled hair and postage-stamp mustache haunts us all now and forevermore and, like a quiet flame that can never be extinguished, burns itself into our souls. The Nazis used to talk of a thousand-year empire. But sometimes I think that because of what we did, the name of Germany and the Germans will live in infamy for a thousand years. That it will take the rest of the world a thousand years to forget. Certainly if I live to be a thousand years old, I’ll never forget some of the things I saw. And some of the things I did.”

  I told Anna everything. That is, everything I had done during the war and its aftermath up to the time I’d set sail for Argentina. It was the first time I’d ever spoken to anyone about it honestly, leaving nothing out and not trying to justify what I myself had done. But at the end of it all, I told her who was really to blame for it all.

  “I blame the Communists for calling a general strike in November 1932, which forced an election. I blame von Hindenburg for being too old to tell Hitler where to get off. I blame six million unemployed—a third of the workforce—for wanting a job at any price, even if it meant Hitler’s price. I blame the army for not putting an end to the street violence during the Weimar Republic and for backing Hitler in 1933. I blame the French. I blame von Schleicher. I blame the British. I blame Goebbels and I blame all those rich businessmen who bankrolled the Nazis. I blame von Papen and Rathenau and Ebert and Scheidemann and Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. I blame the Spartakists and I blame the Freikorps. I blame the Great War for taking away the value of human life. I blame the inflation and the Bauhaus and Dada and Max Reinhardt. I blame Himmler and Goering and Hitler and the SS and Weimar and the whores and the pimps. But most of all I blame myself. I blame myself for doing nothing. Which was less than I ought to have done. Which was all that was required for Nazism to succeed. I share the guilt. I put my survival ahead of all other considerations. That is self-evident. If I was truly innocent, then I’d be dead, Anna. And I’m not.

  “For the last five years, I’ve been letting myself off the hook. I had to come to Argentina and see myself in the eyes of these other ex-SS men to understand that. I was a part of it. I tried not to be and failed. I was there. I wore the uniform. I share the responsibility.”

  Anna Yagubsky lifted her
eyebrows and looked away. “My God,” she said. “You’ve had an interesting life.”

  I smiled, thinking of Hedda Adlon and her Chinese curse.

  “Oh, I’m not judging you,” said Anna. “I wouldn’t say you were guilty of much. Then again, you’re not entirely innocent, either, are you? But it seems to me as if you’ve already paid a kind of price for what you did. You were a prisoner of the Russians. That must have been awful. And now you’re helping me. It strikes me that you wouldn’t do that if you were like the rest of your old comrades. It’s not up to me to forgive you. That’s up to God. Always supposing you believe in God. But I’ll pray for Him to forgive you. And maybe you could try praying yourself.”

  I could hardly have risked her disapproval again by telling her I didn’t believe in God any more than I had believed in Adolf Hitler. A Jew who was a Roman Catholic wasn’t someone who was likely to treat the matter of my atheism lightly. After what I’d just told her, I needed to win her favor back again. So I nodded and said, “Maybe I’ll do that.” And if there was a God, I figured He’d probably understand. After all, it’s easy to stop believing in God when you’ve stopped believing in anything else. When you’ve stopped believing in yourself.

  21

  TUCUMÁN, 1950

  WE REACHED TUCUMÁN the following evening. Or just about. The train was late and it was almost midnight by the time it rumbled into the local station. The place looked better at night. Government House was lit up like a Christmas tree. Under the palm trees on the Plaza Independencia, couples were dancing the tango. Argentines seemed to need little or no excuse to tango. For all I knew, the dancers in the main square were really waiting for a bus. The station itself was full of children. None of them were interested in the submarine-shaped locomotive that was cooling down after our day-long journey. They wanted money. Kids were just like everyone else, in that respect. I shared out a handful of coins and then found us a taxi. I told the driver to take us to the Plaza.