Good People (38 page)

It was a song he happened to know,
‘Abschied'
, from Schubert's ‘Swan Song'. A choice that must have amused his enemies.

…

Four knocks on the door, growing louder. He wakened from his troubled sleep and pulled the blanket off his face. When he was a child, his mother had instructed him, ‘Tell your friend that two knocks are perfectly sufficient.' He had never told him. Had his mother said something to Hermann? Not likely. His mother always greeted his friends cordially, even Hermann.

He felt like curling up between the smooth sheets until he went away, but he knew he had to face him. There was no choice. He took a black sweater out of the closet, washed his face in cold water and straightened his hair. Four more knocks.

Before him stood Hermann, in a pressed dress uniform, with a second-class Iron Cross pinned to it. When did the bastard manage to become a hero? Hermann looked tired; above his upper lip bristled a silvery moustache, wet from the rain. It seems we've both aged. His
weariness aroused hope in Thomas that perhaps he hadn't come to cheer at his downfall; perhaps the recent events were only figments of his imagination?

He was ashamed of himself for grasping at a straw. That was the malady of the weak.

‘You aren't celebrating?' asked Hermann. ‘We conquered Paris.'

‘I've celebrated enough.'

‘You look tired. They say you're working hard,' said Hermann.

‘Please,' Thomas pointed at the parlour.

‘Unfortunately, I have to reject your generous invitation. I'm in a rush to get back to Cracow,' said Hermann. ‘And about that guy you've been looking for, the one from the American company.'

‘I haven't been looking for anyone.'

‘Not looking for anyone,' Hermann said under his breath, ‘Buszkowsky, the manager of your Polish office? Anyway, he hasn't been among the living since May—eliminated along with lots of others.'

‘I understand,' said Thomas. ‘Anyway we came to the conclusion that he wasn't very valuable.'

‘The special plan to impose order: Krieger and Streckenbach's people took about four thousand members of the Polish intelligentsia on a hike in the forests around Warsaw.'

‘I didn't hear anything about that,' Thomas answered. He remembered the bloodied boots, and imagined them stretching to the sky, like the skyscrapers of New York, while he, a small pin-man, hopped around them. He swallowed his saliva, determined to conceal his nausea. He could not afford to show Hermann any indication of weakness. ‘You know that here in Warsaw I am mainly concerned with advising agencies of the Reich.'

‘He was on the list of the intelligentsia, didn't you know?' Hermann said, as if he hadn't heard. ‘His father and uncle were archaeologists. Maybe you'd be pleased to hear that their expertise in digging stood them in good stead. Unlike their comrades, they weren't buried folded up.'

‘No doubt, the German spirit will heal the world.'

‘I understand that you didn't know they were lovers of archaeology,' Hermann continued with pleasure. ‘In your model I read about the great danger of Polish archaeologists. Quite convincing, I have to say.'

‘Thanks a lot. I'm glad you found time to read it.' Thomas tried to sound calm. Knowledge of Bizha's death was already a distant memory. In an instant he had managed to digest his death, to become accustomed to it, to see it as another death that had snatched away one of his acquaintances.

His fingers itched. He remembered something his father had told him when he was a boy, a revelation from the battlefield: there isn't any single thing—any one thing that you learned or believe in or inherited—that you won't discard on the spot in order to survive. Later, at home, the whole thing will seem like a bad dream.

Thomas felt that he was soaring over the familiar terrain of his soul. His self-control, which had always been his pride and glory, had been surrendered to this survival reflex; he was in the midst of a tiger-leap into the unknown. If he were forced to fight Hermann to the death, he would do it.

He wanted to shout
This fear is marvellous!

‘Well, maybe not every word.' Hermann laughed. ‘Sometimes it was boring and obscure, a little like that book by Rosenberg.
*
The true myth of the twentieth century is that it's possible to read this thing.'

‘Reading demands discipline. While I was working on the model, I read the whole book and enjoyed it.'

‘Sure you read it,' said Hermann, ‘like the books you read at school, or was I the one who actually read them?'

‘Maybe one book, whose simplistic message matched your intellect,' Thomas retorted. ‘If you came here to reminisce, I also have some memories.'

Hermann leaned across. ‘I've heard that you've made enemies here too.'

‘There's no success without enemies,' Thomas answered. ‘You know that.'

‘How unfortunate that you can't consult your Jewish therapist. I heard she's in the labour camp at Ravensbrück. Finally she's doing some real work.'

‘I never spoke about work with her anyway.'

‘Maybe a smart man like you should wonder why decent men like my old friend Kresling and your colleague Georg Weller have become your enemies?' Hermann suggested with feigned courtesy.

‘I assume that, with respect to Kresling, I have you to thank for it.'

‘Naturally it was my duty to tell him with whom he was dealing.' Hermann rubbed his hands together and pretended to be thoughtful. ‘But I'll tell you something: he would never have trusted a man who was willing to betray his place of work and his partner Georg Weller, who gave you an opportunity when no one in Germany even remembered that you were alive.'

‘Nonsense,' Thomas hissed. ‘Weller was a marginal figure in the Foreign Office, and thanks to my model he rose to greatness.'

‘You really believe that, eh?' Hermann cleared his throat. ‘First, don't exaggerate the prestige of your model. Most of the agencies of the Reich regard it as pitiful gibberish from our incompetent Foreign Office. Second, as to our little matter, I have to inform you that even if there were no Hermann Kreizinger in the world, your treacherous intrigues would still be doomed to failure. Weller is very close to Eberhard von Thadden. You remember there was a suspicion he was Jewish? Maybe you also remember the old family friend who invented the dubious story that Eberhard is the great-grandson of a Russian aristocrat, and, presto, extricated him from the quagmire.'

Now he recalled. ‘Of course,' he answered, and there was a catch in his voice. ‘Reichsmarschall Göring.'

‘The great patron to whom you longed to deliver the model,' Hermann said drily. His high spirits had faded. It seemed that ridiculing Thomas had given him less pleasure than he anticipated. ‘Weller is very close to him, through von Thadden. Your arrogance set you against
a network of forces which had already withstood every test while you were still selling umbrellas in your American company. But even without me and von Thadden, everyone would have come out against you!'

‘Well, if you say so.' Thomas smiled. Hermann really did want him to understand why he had become his enemy.

‘You can do magic tricks, and juggle too. I have to confess, after your company cleared out of Germany, I believed you were finished. When I heard you had a job in the Foreign Office and that you'd impressed some agencies with your model, I applauded you. And as for what you tell everybody, how you voted for the Party from 1929 on, out of respect for your father—that's a true work of art. No one can deny it, except those who know that your mother threw your father out of the house while you were at university—but even then you can claim that you remained close, and respectful of him, and that can't be contradicted either. The problem is that in your whole life you've never believed in anything except your own ability. You have no national feeling and no loyalty to your nation, and frankly you never had any sense of obligation towards your parents. And, worst of all, you've never devoted even a minute to thinking why you're like this, or how you might improve as a person; you never understood that every act of the individual should serve as a general rule for the behaviour of the entire race. You have devoted all your talents and energy to nothing but your own benefit. You perfected yourself alone, and you can disguise yourself as whatever you want, even a National Socialist. But there's a moment when people figure it out, do you understand? No, you don't; you never understood. That's just what I was talking about with Kresling. You believe that everyone is like you. But I believe there's such a thing as truth, and ultimately it will come out. That's the difference between us.'

‘Maybe I'm like that, and maybe not,' Thomas said coldly. ‘A person like you couldn't judge. As for my father, don't you dare mention him to me. If you had honoured your father the way I did mine, or at least if you'd helped him get out of his financial troubles, maybe he wouldn't
have sat down on the railway tracks.'

Awareness that he had told an outright lie, and that Hermann had loved his father more than any child he knew, only heightened his ferocity. Had he intended to drive Hermann mad? He was impelled by a single flaming image: his teeth gnawing at Hermann's mind.

‘Luckily for you, I know this is the prattle of a man who's done for,' Hermann said. ‘You're finished in the Foreign Office, and there are no more rabbits in your hat.'

‘We'll see about that.' The distortion of a hoarse cough filtered into his voice. ‘Remember your surprise when you heard about the model? Get ready for another one.' He had defied Hermann as much as he could. He felt euphoria—mingled with fear, of course, but actually fear wasn't such a bad ruler. Hermann expected him to be stunned and defeated, like that night in the street. That would never happen again.

‘So we can only wait.' Hermann hissed his familiar threatening whistle.

‘We'll wait. Patience was never your strong point,' replied Thomas. ‘There's an unsettled account between us, and it will only be closed when you're lying where my mother is lying now.'

Liberating lightness swept through his body. Suddenly he understood his thirst for revenge, which had worked itself up beneath thickening layers of thought. Now his thirst raged wildly, and his body ached for it: any desire that throbbed with such intensity must be real.

‘You should have said that earlier,' said Hermann. ‘If you really wanted revenge, I would have seen it in your eyes. But we both know that if I had extended my hand to you and promised to help you out of your trouble, you would have taken it.'

‘It's fascinating to see a beer-hall thug struggle to figure out a man like me,' Thomas said. ‘I'll settle the account between us according to law, as cultured people do. Long ago I hired a lawyer in Berlin to sue for the damage you did to my house and for your part in my mother's death. You know how harshly the SS deals with robbers who shame the uniform they're wearing.'

‘One minute you want to kill me, the next minute you're suing me,' Hermann mocked. ‘We didn't steal so much as a napkin from your house.'

‘We disagree on that. According to my reckoning, you stole a lot,' Thomas said. ‘So maybe you'll extend your hand to me now?'

‘I'd sooner commit suicide.' Hermman rose to his full height, a head taller than Thomas. ‘Germany, the whore of the 1920s, suited people like you, but now there's a new Germany, and you're like an infection in her body. The problem is that there are too many people of your type in the system.'

‘The world is made up of people like me. Look, even the government needs me, and that's what really terrifies you: behind your government and your Party, the parades and the victories, it's my face that pops out in the end.' For the first time in his life he felt that he was chasing his words, but nevertheless everything he said pleased him.

‘That's just your weak spot, Thomas,' said Hermann triumphantly, his eyes glowing. ‘Ever since I've known you, you've believed, truly believed, that you're two steps ahead of everyone else, that you are the ideal German. And everyone who isn't like you is either lying to himself or a coward and a fool.'

‘With your permission, I'm going back to sleep,' said Thomas.

‘It's really a pity that you tend to miss the important things: for example, your American company never left Germany. They kicked you out after they used you, exactly the way—and this has already been decided—the Foreign Office will kick you out tomorrow, but you ought to know that the company is still advising clients in Berlin, and it keeps an account with the Dresdener Bank. Now the managers in New York have asked us to be friendly to their office in Paris, something to do with the French soul, sounds like the kind of waffle you used to invent.'

‘Why do you always insist on saying “the American company”?' asked Thomas with an anger that sounded childish to him. ‘If you acquired all that information, you'd remember its name.'

‘Actually I don't remember.' Hermann winked. ‘Today when I was watching you run around at the party like a panicked rat, I understood the root of your tragedy: organisations apparently need people of your kind. You're the great spinner of plans, the virtuoso speaker, the tireless booster of your own interests. I've never doubted your abilities. But because of the person you are, you'll never really be part of anything. You're just a flash in the pan. In the end you're always left with nothing.' ‘And you? Will you be here forever?' Thomas swallowed his bitter saliva. Hermann's words had wounded him. ‘I appreciate the time and trouble you've invested. But if I wanted psychological analysis from thugs, believe me, I would have looked for you in one of your holes.'

‘Twice now you've called an SS officer with a second-class Iron Cross a thug,' Hermann said, clicking his heels and heading for the stairs, his arm lifted in feigned despair. ‘I can't sleep in this city. The beds in the Bristol are only for dwarfs.'