The Fellowship (31 page)

BMW Factory

Munich

Wolf stepped off the bus in front of the BMW factory. He heard a distant droning and peered skyward, scanning the skies for aircraft. Although Cologne had so far gotten the worst of the British air raids, Munich had not been entirely spared. It too had suffered a raid in September. The city’s first taste of British bombardment had been relatively mild, but Wolf figured that sooner or later, the BMW factory – which had shifted most of its production toward aircraft engines and military motorcycles – would be on the Allied hit list.

“It’s just the
machines,” a gravelly voice said.

Wolf turned. The voice belonged to a man in a brown jumpsuit wit
h a circular BMW logo patch on the front. His hair was gray and wild atop his head, like a fox that had rubbed itself in the dirt.

“That sound,” the man
clarified. “It’s not the RAF. It’s just the machines inside the factory.”

“You work here
?”

“Yes. I have papers if you need to see them.”

“
Relax,” Wolf said. He pointed at the insignia on the lapels of his black SS uniform. “I’m not Gestapo. I’m looking for a man named Leo Kruger.”

“
East wing, third floor. Kruger works on pistons.”

Wolf
tipped his hat and went on his way, striding through the front doors without pausing at reception. Although not yet an officer, nobody seemed to question the legitimacy of a black SS uniform. Besides, he did not want his visit documented. This was personal business.

He walked past rows of identically dressed workers
assembling propellers. Each worker had a nameplate, a number and various tools and parts before him. The workers were, without exception, gray or silver-haired.

Wolf
broke out into a sweat as he took the stairs to the third floor and surveyed another hundred or so workers. He easily spotted the supervisor, who was, judging by the amount of fat around his midsection, enjoying extra food rations.

“I’m looking for Kruger,” Wolf whispered. The supervisor walked
into the middle of the floor and plucked Kruger out of one of the rows of workers.

The former priest
wore a greasy blue shirt and a black wool cap. Eyes cast downward, back bent. Sleeves were rolled up, revealing forearms streaked with scar tissue.

When Kruger had spoken of his employment at BMW, Wolf had imagined that the great Jesuit teacher was some sort of supervisor, perhaps leading a team of researchers
. He imagined Kruger smartly dressed, drawing up development plans on a drafting board. Although the priest had said nothing to lead him to this conclusion, Wolf felt somehow beguiled by the man standing before him now. 

The
two exchanged perfunctory greetings. Virtually every single worker on the floor was watching them.

“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”

Kruger leaned close, speaking into Wolf’s ear. “Sebastian,” he said, “you’ve managed to build something for yourself. You can’t afford to be seen with someone like me.”

“
Nonsense,” Wolf insisted. “I need to talk to you. Is there somewhere we can go?”

Kruger motioned to the wider room. “Obviously not.”

“Then meet me after work. Please.”

Kruger
hesitated, feeling the eyes of his fellow workers on him. “Where?”

“
Haufbrauhaus,” Wolf whispered. It was one of the oldest and most popular beer halls in Munich. Although there was far less drunkenness on display in recent years, it was still lively.

“
No. Too public.”

“Then the
Ratskellar
,” Wolf suggested, referring to the basement restaurant beneath the medieval town hall building with the famous
Glockenspiel
clock tower. It was cavernous, a bit darker than the other beer halls, and certainly less popular.

Kruger
stepped back and spat on the cement floor. “Five thirty,” he said. “Be punctual.”

Marienplatz

Munich

At 5 pm,
Wolf set out for the Ratskellar, leaving his arm sling behind for the first time since leaving the hospital in Paris. The shoulder still throbbed, but he thought it wise to toughen himself up before reporting for duty again. Nagel had questioned his suitability for service repeatedly during training, mocking his dream of a life in academia. By his third week at Wewelsburg Castle, Wolf decided that he would never again reveal any weakness, no matter how difficult those shortcomings were to mask. From then on, he resolved to live the motto that was inscribed on his dagger:
Be more than you seem.

He
walked through his old neighborhood, noting with regret how quickly the architectural perfection of Marienplatz was being changed by the war. The façade of a bank had been reduced to brick during the September air raids. In response, two anti-aircraft batteries had been erected on opposite sides of the square. Several Hitler Youth patrols roamed the streets. The patrol leaders were younger and more aggressive than ever before. As dusk fell, a pack of boys went door to door, ordering shopkeepers to turn off their lights so as to deprive Allied planes of ground targets.

On another corner,
a pair of boys harassed a young woman for being too thin. Slim women were not good for childbearing, one of them told her. She should fatten up and find a husband.

“And h
ow is she supposed to do that?” Wolf shouted as he came up behind the youth patrol. The boys stood at attention at the sight of Wolf’s uniform. “All the able-bodied men are at war, and the government is rationing food. What is she to do? Boil wallpaper and marry one of you?”

The girl – she could not have been more than 17 – flashed Wolf a grateful smile as she slipped away
from the stunned youth brigade. He stood unmoving for a time, surprised at how his presence seemed to freeze the boys where they stood while the crowds in Marienplatz moved around them. There were six of them. He guessed they were 12 or 13 years old, although they seemed jaded beyond their years. He had heard that some of the youth brigades had been taken on field trips into Poland, where they practiced giving orders to political prisoners living in the ghettos. Show no pity, they were told. He was quite certain this bunch would have no trouble with that.

He dismiss
ed them. They dispersed like a pack of puppies, moving to the other side of the square, where they would no doubt refocus their harassment on someone else. Wolf sighed in relief. If one of the little punks had so much as gripped his left shoulder, he would have been driven to his knees.

The
Glockenspiel clock tower on the town hall was covered with a draping red swastika banner. Wolf walked under it, through the main archway and into the interior courtyard. He descended two sets of stairs and stood just above one of several Ratskellar dining rooms. As he had hoped, it was not busy. A few tables occupied by old men.

A
maître d’ in a smart suit approached. “Table for one?”

Wolf straightened his posture, working through the pain as he brought his shoulders into alignment.
“I’m meeting someone. Take me somewhere private.”

He was led
through the first room, into a smaller secondary dining room, where there were fewer lights. Wolf sat at a corner table with his back to the wall. He pulled out a silver cigarette case and opened it, revealing several dozen food stamps. He presented them to a waiter and ordered two beers.

He
didn’t have to wait long. Leo Kruger arrived at the precise moment that the drinks were delivered to the table. Kruger sat down uneasily. The sullied blue shirt and dirty face told Wolf that he hadn’t had time to stop home from work yet.

“Father Kruger,” Wolf said. He gestured toward the second beer. “Please.”

Kruger sat, but did not touch the mug. “Perhaps I wasn’t clear at dinner,” Kruger said. “I am no longer a priest.”

Laughter swelled from the adjoining hall. Kruger turned to look.

“Don’t worry about them,” Wolf said. “It’s good to see you. Of all the teachers, you were the best. Do you remember how you would sometimes let us stay after school? We could ask you about any subject, and you would talk for hours.”

“
Don’t be delusional,” Kruger snapped. “Everything has changed. What do you want from me?”

Wolf
reached into his overcoat and removed a piece of paper. He set it on the table and unfolded it. On it he had written the foreign letters that he had watched Hoffman write with his own blood. “Do you recognize this?”

A waiter walked past on his way from the kitchen to the next room. Kruger turned and waited until he was out of earshot before speaking. “
Where did you see this?”

Wolf hesitated. “France,” he said, but thought better of providing more details.

“Odd,” the priest said. “At the Louvre, perhaps?”

“No.”
Wolf sipped his beer, relishing the way the bubbles percolated on his tongue.

“The
writing is an ancient form of Aramaic,” Kruger said, his demeanor warming slightly. He slurped the foam from the top of his own mug. “And why is a Nazi asking me to translate a language that is most commonly associated with ancient Jews?”

“
I’m not a Nazi,” Wolf said in a voice that was at once defensive and yet barely audible. “At least not by choice.”

“We all have a choice, Sebastian. I chose not to
indoctrinate my students with propaganda. For that I spent three years in Dachau prison.”

The bite in Kruger’s tone was palpable. “I admire you for what you did.”

“What good did it do? The result of my pride is sitting right in front of me.”

Wolf felt suddenly small. “
I was drafted,” he explained. “Besides, the Ahnenerbe is a sort of research organization, full of academics.”

“
That description is generous, if not completely inaccurate. The Ahnenerbe generates politically convenient propaganda through the study of ancient Germanic cultures.”

“Well, you could
–” 

“That’s not up for debate.
So I’ll ask you again. Why is a Nazi asking me about a language spoken by ancient Jews?”

Wolf lowered his voice a notch. “I watched a man die while writing those letters in his own blood.
He seemed to think they were important, and I’m trying to find out why. I owe him that much.”

The ex-teacher
took a long drink from his beer stein. He studied the writing once again. “The words are very simple and clear.
Yeshua bar Yehosef.
Jesus, son of Joseph.”

The young soldier sat back in his chai
r, contemplating what he had just heard. The Holy Ossuary. Could it be true? Could it be the ossuary of Jesus? The Gospels and the apocryphal texts differed slightly on some points, but the primary narrative was well-established. Jesus had been crucified, and had died at some time before Longinus the Centurion had come with his famous spear. A wealthy man named Joseph of Arimethea, with the help of Nicodimus, had volunteered to take the body. They applied myrrh and aloes and placed the body in a tomb that Joseph had in fact created for himself. Three days later, Mary Magdalene had visited the tomb with two others and found it empty. The body had vanished. Soon afterwards, she had been the first to witness the resurrected messiah. Not as a ghost, but in the flesh. The existence of a Holy Ossuary would call into question the literal interpretation of the resurrection itself.

Wolf
did not care what Himmler believed. He did not care what Dr. Seiler believed. They weren’t even Christians. But the fact that the ossuary with Jesus’ name on it had been kept in one of the world’s great churches was another matter. Clearly, someone powerful within the church had believed it.

If only
Kruger were still a priest, Wolf thought. Then I would confess what I saw. I would even confess what I have done.

“I learned Aramaic when I was a young apprentice,” Kruger
volunteered. “Back in the days when his Holiness Pope Pius XII was known as Nuncio Pacelli, I had the pleasure of serving him here in Munich. He knew of my fondness for languages. We would often speak Italian and of course, Latin. One summer he and his housekeeper, Sister Klara, arranged for me to apprentice in the Vatican Archives.

“
I could not believe my luck,” Kruger went on. “By day I worked long hours doing grunt labor. But the evenings were mine to explore. I gravitated towards the oldest works. The ancient codices. Fragments of cloth with ancient text printed on them. It was then that I encountered the languages that Christ had known. I was exhilarated.”

The former priest drank more ale.

“Does the Vatican,” Wolf said, pausing before he finished his sentence, “possess any alternate histories of the resurrection?”

Kruger’s face was suddenly serious. “
Alternate
history? Everyone has doubts, Sebastian. It doesn’t mean we can retell the stories as they suit us.”

“
That’s not what I meant,” Wolf said. “Is the manner of the resurrection ever debated behind closed doors? Is it possible that Jesus returned in spirit form only?”

Kruger shook his head.
“
Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.
Luke 24:39.
Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.
John 20:27.”

Hearing scripture
quenched something deep inside Wolf’s soul. He had not been able to read the Bible, much less attend mass, since leaving for the Reich School years earlier. But the question remained unanswered.

“What of the other witnesses?” Wolf countered. “For example, Jesus is said to have told Mary specifically not to touch him. Paul also did not experience the flesh. He claims to have seen a light from heaven and heard Jesus’ voice. Luke and Mark both related that Jesus appeared in a form other than his earthly self. Only later did they recognize him as Jesus, at which point he vanished like an apparition.”

“As I have said repeatedly, I’m no longer qualified to give you spiritual advice. But I should warn you – interpret the story literally, but not the words themselves. After all, when Jesus spoke to crowds, he always spoke in parables.”

“You did not answer the question.”

“Christ returned from the dead. The salvation of believers was confirmed. The form in which he rose does not matter.”

But it did matter.
The truth was everything to Wolf. If Himmler sought the bones of Jesus Christ, then, for the sake of his mother, Wolf was content to play along so long as the bones did not really exist. But if they did exist, then everything he had ever believed would be called into question.

Wolf
reached into his tunic and removed the octagon-shaped fabric Lang had purportedly found in Hoffman’s mouth. It was stiff in his hands, crusted with a combination of Hoffman’s saliva and blood. He placed it on the table.

Kruger bent to read the Latin
inscription, but he did not touch it. Wolf thought he saw recognition in the old Jesuit’s eyes. And fear.

“You’ve seen this before,
” Wolf said.

Kruger
stood up and put on his weathered coat. “You are into something that you cannot possibly imagine,” he warned.

“What is this?”

The former priest paused before leaving. “It’s safer if you don’t know. I urge you to find another path, Sebastian. May God keep and protect you.”