The Boy from Berlin Page 3
‘Do you know who you are looking for?’ the young woman asked.
He shook his head. ‘No, I only have a number.’
‘What is it?’ He told her and she tapped the number into a computer. A few moments passed and she wrote the name Buchenwald on a notepad, tore the page off and handed it to Haman.
‘You’ll find details in the file marked Buchenwald,’ she said, handing him the paper. Then she pushed her swivel chair away from the desk and stood up. ‘I’ll take you.’
He was shown into a room that contained row upon row of steel filing cabinets. The young woman pointed down the aisle and left him to it, promising him help if he needed it. Haman began walking slowly down the aisle, crowded in by shelves and shelves of heart rending misery.
On each cabinet was a plate containing the letter, in alphabetical order, of each file held within that cabinet. On other cabinets were the names of the camps: Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Breendonk and Buchenwald. The list of names and letters seemed endless.
Haman opened the drawer marked Buchenwald. Inside were ledgers. He withdrew one and went to the end of the row to find a table, one of many that had been conveniently placed. He laid the ledger on the table and opened it. There were columns of names and numbers. Alongside each name had been written something about that person. It included such mundane information as to whether that person had lice, how many teeth, false or otherwise, gold or silver.
As Haman ran his finger down the archaic, brown stained pages, he began to feel a sense of bitterness towards his own country. Each line had stripped bare a human being, taking the poor soul down to the basest of dignity. There was nothing there about the character of the man or the woman, simply what they possessed that could be quantified and valued. The fragments of their living were more valuable than their lives.
After two hours, Haman had worked his way through a dozen ledgers. His eyes were beginning to react to the constant scanning of aged writing. There were times when he was distracted. Not by other sounds or the occasional visitor, but by the sheer, overwhelming sadness of each entry. He knew that someone would have carefully penned the entry; probably blotting it like a clerk would after making an entry in a warehouse ledger or financial account. He wondered how that nameless person must have felt. But then he realized that that person would have been like the young, 17-year-old Hitler Youth who had been ordered to burn the bodies of the Fuhrer and Eva Braun; he would have been doing his duty.
Haman took a break and went across the road to a bar where he had a coffee and collected his thoughts. He could have used the small reception area where there were some automatic dispensing machines, but he felt the need to escape from the place for a while.
He didn’t know what he would do when he found what he was looking for. Once he had the name of the woman who was murdered in the Chancellery, he would need to trace her and learn whether she had a family or not. The chances were that if indeed she did have a family, they would all have followed her to their deaths in the revolting gas chambers. He finished his coffee and went back to the building that he had come to regard as a house of death.
He began his search again wondering how long it would take him to work his way through the endless rows of cabinets before, or if he found what he was looking for. But suddenly the number was there, neatly inscribed and showing deft penmanship: 180328. But there was no record of her fate; all that had been written in a firm, steady hand was the woman’s name, Rosmaleen Demski, followed by the word ‘Zugeordnet’: assigned.
Haman knew that Buchenwald had been a sink hole where the unfortunate Jews and people who were anathema to the Nazis met their fate. And he knew from the records through which he had been reading that each entry contained the fate of practically all those who had been listed. He hadn’t come across the word assigned before, so now he was baffled; he didn’t know what to do. He closed the ledger and took it back to the filing cabinet, replaced it and slid the long drawer home. It was almost as if he was closing a drawer in a mortuary.
The young woman at the desk looked up at Haman as he walked into the reception area. She smiled. It was a pleasant smile; so out of place in the house of horrors.
‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ she asked.
Haman shrugged and shook his head. ‘All I could find was that my friend had been assigned.’ He shrugged again. ‘I don’t know what that means. You know; what happened to her.’
Her head bobbed up and down. ‘Yes, I think you’ll have to look through the records at the camp your friend was at.’
‘Buchenwald,’ he reminded her.
‘Of course,’ she remembered. ‘If you’ll just wait for a moment.’ She typed in Haman’s details on the computer and asked for the number for which he was searching. He told her. She finished typing then punched the print button. Once the printer had finished, she pulled out the result and handed it to him. ‘Hand this in at the Buchenwald desk with your application. Should be all you’ll need,’ she reassured him.
He thanked her and left the centre. Tomorrow he would begin the next part of his quest.
Buchenwald was a statement about man’s inhumanity to man. Despite the efforts to make the camp look pristine, there was nothing anyone could do to shake off the invisible cloak of terror that stalked each blade of grass and each wall of that forbidding monument to the Nazi horror. Haman felt his skin crawl as he sat in front of the computer screen, checking column after column of names and their fates.
As much as Haman wanted to find out what happened to Rosmaleen Demski, he was drawn by some powerful emotion to the names that scrolled past. It was as though he felt compelled to suffer the fates of those inmates by some kind of metamorphosis, as page after page of horror written with a casual hand that could not even begin to understand or empathize with the victims, were now making his flesh crawl. He felt guilt, and it was not guilt by association, but guilt by birth. He was born a German and felt the weight of the nation’s guilt on his shoulders.
He blinked the tears from his eyes and continued his weary toil until he came to Rosmaleen Demski. It was not the first, but about the fiftieth woman with that name. But this was the woman he had been searching for. Rosmaleen Demski, number 180328; assigned to Reich chancellery. Haman nodded; he knew that. Well, he realized what the assignment was but the date was March, 1945. The woman who had been murdered in place of Eva Braun died in April. So why was Rosmaleen Demski taken away earlier if all they had planned to do was to shoot her? Probably to fatten the poor woman up, he decided.
But it was the following entry that caught Haman’s eye. She had a son. His name was Isaac. Ten years old. And his number was written alongside his mother’s entry, just to keep the records straight. So correct in everything they did, so fatal to everything they touched. He shook his head and read on. Isaac, number 180329, was taken away from his mother and returned to Auschwitz. Haman looked up at the ceiling. He knew that thousands of the Jews had been processed at Auschwitz before being sent on to places like Buchenwald. It looked as though young Isaac Demski had been returned there to be reprocessed perhaps.
He looked back at the screen. There was nothing else there that could help him. It meant he now had to return to the ITS at Bad Arolsen and begin his search for Isaac Demski.
Babs let the memory fade away. She had never met Haman. And if it hadn’t been for the German’s dedication, she would never have met Jacob Demski. Smart bastard he was, she recalled, but so dangerous.
She looked at the young woman who was still writing and waited until she had put her pen down.
‘You never know who you are connected to, you know, until it’s too late.’
‘Too late?’
She peered over her glasses at the young writer. ‘It’s like having a relation turn up at a family wedding. Someone you wouldn’t be seen dead with. Or the black sheep of the family.’ She sighed deeply. ‘The one who shatters that carefully contrived appearance that you reserve for the outside world.’
Babs leaned forward assertively. ‘Yes, but it isn’t always a truth that you are aware of.’
‘A skeleton in the closet?’
Babs grimaced. ‘You could put it that way.’ She stopped and thought of something. ‘But in this case, more than just a skeleton in the closet.’
The young writer wondered if that was a reference to the concentration camp, but let it pass.
‘Let us go back to the dinner party for a moment,’ she said after a while. ‘You said you used to jog in the middle of the morning. But what about your husband, did he take up jogging?’
Babs stopped fiddling with the loose thread in her skirt and looked across the cell at the young woman. ‘Yes, but I didn’t know it at the time. I would go for a run about nine, 9.30.’ She shrugged. ‘Sometimes it would be late evening. Mostly it depended on what Gus was doing at the time.’
‘It did rather point the finger at you,’ the young writer told her. ‘Pre-planned?’
‘It looked that way,’ she admitted. ‘But I wanted to bump into Senator Robbins in a more subtle way so that it looked like chance. I needed to get into her good books.’
The young writer scribbled something down on her pad. ‘She wasn’t keen on you though, was she?’
Babs shook her head. ‘No, and that’s the damming thing about it. If it hadn’t been for my presence in Gus’s life, I’m sure she would have been all over him like a rash.’
The young woman laughed. When she quietened down she said: ‘So Ann Robbins’ intention to block your husband’s admission to the State Senate was simply because he was married to you, right?’
Babs eyed her rather sternly. ‘Ann Robbins wanted my husband like there was no tomorrow, but he wanted no part of it, and that stuck in her craw.’
‘It gave your accusers a motive, didn’t it? The irony is that, well, there really was no tomorrow for Senator Robbins, was there?’
Babs was a little surprised at that. ‘Why, because she fancied my husband? She fancied most things in pants.’ She looked away. ‘The prosecutor claimed I had a motive because Senator Robbins was going to block Gus’s election to the State Senate, not because she was showing signs of wanting to get him in the sack.’
The young writer turned her attention to the notepad and wrote for a little while. Then she looked up and tossed her head back, and ran her hand over her head.
‘Was it common knowledge?’
‘Was what common knowledge?’
‘Senator Robbins’ intention to block your husband?’
‘Judge Lawrence knew.’
Gus Mason sat across the table from Judge Henry Lawrence in the diner. It wasn’t an unusual place to find members of the court. Although there were more elegant places for people like Judge Lawrence to eat, there were fewer prying eyes and open ears in the diner. The other customers in there were more interested in their own lunch breaks, tucked into the booths, than they were in whatever was being said, or plotted at other tables.
The waitress poured them both fresh coffee and took their orders, then left them to themselves. The diner was busy, and that suited the two men. They could talk freely and know that they wouldn’t be overheard. Outside the diner, the traffic on Washington Avenue rumbled by. The noise was only intrusive when the main door of the diner was opened, but not for long; inside it was just the general hubbub of conversation and the sounds of knives and forks on plates.
Lawrence lifted his cup and took a mouthful of coffee. The cup was almost lost in his huge fist. Lawrence was a big, imposing giant of a man. He was about six feet three inches in height and weighed about two hundred pounds. In court his presence was so intimidating at times that it was said that he literally frightened the defendants into pleading guilty, whether they were or not.
His dark hair was swept straight back over his head and reached to his shirt collar. His dark suit and massive shoulders made him a fearsome sight. Gus Mason knew the judge had tremendous strength and had been a legend in his college football team. He once signed for the Dallas Cowboys, but a foot injury put paid to what would have been a promising professional career.
Lawrence was also well known for his right wing views. Some members of the left wing newspapers argued that a man with extreme views like Lawrence’s should not be a judge, but it was expected that he would be appointed to the Supreme Court once a Republican president had been elected.
‘She’s going to block you, Gus.’
Mason nodded over the top of his coffee cup. He put it down. ‘I know,’ he replied levelly. ‘I’ve got to figure something out; something that will either change her mind or …’ He shrugged and left the rest of the sentence die on his lips.
‘Have you tried the direct approach?’
Mason smiled and raised his eyebrows. ‘You mean like sleeping with her?’
Lawrence nodded. ‘She’d be eating out of your hand. It’s worth thinking about.’
Mason nodded back. ‘And Babs would be delighted, eh?’
They both laughed. Then Lawrence got serious. ‘We’ve got three weeks until the nominations are accepted, Gus. That should give you some time. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if she blocked you, but it might sow some doubt on your credibility.’
He shook his head. ‘We had her over for dinner. Waste of time.’
‘Too open. You need a little more subtlety.’
‘Like blackmail?’
Lawrence’s eyebrows lifted. ‘You have something on her?’
‘Of course not. She’s untouchable.’
The waitress turned up with their orders. Ham on rye bread for Mason, and a beef burger with fries for Lawrence. She refilled their cups and left them to their meal.
‘I’ll speak to her, Gus,’ Lawrence told him, his jaw rotating as he munched on the burger.
‘Really?’ Mason was surprised at the judge’s offer. It wasn’t expected of senior judges to interfere in what could only be seen as a political decision. Not that it was very democratic, such that a senator could block an aspirant simply because of a personal prejudice. But Mason welcomed the judge’s offer.
‘That’s very good of you, Judge,’ he admitted, ‘but isn’t it a little risky?’
Lawrence shook his head. ‘Counsellor, we need you in that Senate, and one way or the other, we’re going to get you there.’
Mason was surprised at Lawrence’s openness, but he let it pass, grateful that he was being given such powerful backing. But he did wonder exactly how Lawrence was going to swing it.
THREE
LIEUTENANT AMOS OF the New Jersey State Police stared down at the body of Senator Ann Robbins. She had been pulled from the water and looked quite peaceful. Her hair lay in wisps across her face which had turned white because the blood had drained away, seeking the lowest point in her prone body. She was wearing an expensive jogging suit with the distinctive ‘whoosh’ logo emblazoned across the front. There was no sign of any make-up on the woman, and there was no obvious sign of violence.
Amos pulled the zip up along the body bag until it closed over the senator’s face and stood up. He looked around at the crime scene which was now cordoned off with police tape. It fluttered in the breeze like a warning to anyone who might come along in a hurry, as some joggers tend to do.
The lake was on his left as he faced back along a blacktop path, wide enough for most traffic. The trees on his right were on the edge of a small copse. A well-worn path, not tarmac, sloped down from the high ground. The path could not be seen from his vantage point other than the few yards that came out of the trees and joined the track that ran around the edge of the lake.
‘Has she been in the water long?’ he asked, still looking at the path.
The police doctor pushed his bottom lip out as he considered the question.
‘Difficult to tell at this stage, Amos. Should get a better idea from the pathologist’s report, but I would say no more than thirty minutes.’<
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He turned to the police officer who was standing close by.
‘Who found her?’
The patrolman looked beyond him and tipped his head towards a Crown Vic patrol car that was parked on the narrow road.
‘Young jogger, a woman no more than about eighteen. She’s over there.’ Amos turned as the officer was talking. ‘But she’s pretty shaken up.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll go careful,’ he said and walked over to the police car.
The young woman was sitting in the back of the Crown Vic. She was wearing a good quality jogging outfit and what look liked decent trainers on her feet. She had her hands in her lap and Amos could see she was trembling. He eased open the door and slid in beside her. He could see her blanched features quite clearly and realized it must have been a terrible shock to the poor woman.
‘Morning ma’am. I’m Lieutenant Amos. Everybody calls me Amos. Thank you for agreeing to wait. I won’t keep you long. When we’re finished up here one of my men will take you home. You can call in at the precinct office and make a statement later, or we’ll send somebody round to your home if you wish.’
She moved her eyes towards him and shivered, but it was not from the cold.
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘I would sooner you send somebody round.’
‘What time did you find the body?’
She looked away from him and stared through the windscreen. ‘About seven o’clock this morning.’
He glanced at his watch. ‘Was there anybody else around at that time?’
‘Couple of joggers.’
‘Do you know them? Would you recognize them if you saw them again?’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t know them, not personally. I only see them occasionally.’
‘Any strangers?’
‘No.’
‘When you found the body, what did you do?’