“I’ll speak to Major Savostin. See if I can’t get you off the work detail until this thing is sorted.”
“You do that, sir. Appeal to his sense of fair play. He probably keeps it in a matchbox alongside his sense of humor. And now I think about it, that’s another objection I have to this so-called investigation. I don’t like the Ivans knowing anything more about me than they already do. Especially the MVD.”
The SGO smiled.
“Did I say something funny, sir?”
“Before the war, I was a doctor,” said the SGO.
“Like your brother.”
He nodded. “In a mental asylum. We treated a lot of people for something called paranoia.”
“I know what paranoia is, sir.”
“Why are you so paranoid, Gunther?”
“Me, I suppose it’s because I have a problem trusting people. I should warn you, Colonel, I’m not the persistent type. Over the years I’ve learned it’s better to be a quitter. I find that knowing when to quit is the best way of staying alive. So don’t expect me to be a hero. Not here. Since I put on a German uniform I find that the hero business has been put back thirty years.”
The SGO gave me a disapproving look. “Perhaps,” he said stiffly, “if we’d had more heroes we might just have won the war.”
“No, Colonel. If we’d had more heroes the war might never have got started.”
I went back to work, filling my wheelbarrow with sand, pushing it up a gangplank, emptying it, and then pushing it back down again. Endless and unavailing, it was the kind of work that gets your picture on the side of a Greek amphora, or in a story that illustrates the dangers of betraying the secrets of the gods. It wasn’t as dangerous as the kind of work the SGO wanted me to do, and but for the vodka inside me and the nicotine in my lungs, I might have been feeling a little less than inspired about the prospect of saving twenty-five of my comrades from a little show trial in Stalingrad. I’ve never been the type to mistake intoxication for heroism. Besides, it’s not heroes you need to win a war, it’s people who stay alive.
I was still feeling a little intoxicated when the SGO and the MVD major came to fetch me from my Sisyphean labor. And this can be the only explanation for the way I spoke to the Ivan. In Russian. That was a mistake all on its own. The Russians liked it a lot when you spoke Russian. In that respect they’re like anyone else. The only difference is that Russians think it means you like them.
The MVD major, Savostin, dismissed the SGO with a wave of his hand as soon as Mrugowski had pointed me out. The Russian waved me toward him impatiently.
“Bistra! Davai!”
He was about fifty, with reddish hair and a mouth as wide as the Volga that looked as if it had been exaggerated for the purpose of a vindictive caricature. The pale blue eyes in his pale white head had been inherited from the gray she-wolf who’d littered him.
I dropped my shovel and ran eagerly toward him. The Blues liked you to do everything at the double.
“Mrugowski tells me that you were a fascist policeman before the war.”
“No, sir. I was just a policeman. Generally, I left the fascism to the fascists. I had enough to do just being a policeman.”
“Did you ever arrest any communists?”
“I might have done. If they broke the law. But I never arrested anyone for being a communist. I investigated murders.”
“You must have been very busy.”
“Yes, sir, I was.”
“What is your rank?”
“Captain, sir.”
“Then why are you wearing a corporal’s jacket?”
“The corporal to whom it belonged wasn’t using it.”
“What function did you have during the war?”
“I was an intelligence officer, sir.”
“Did you ever fight any partisans?”
“No, sir. Only the Red Army.”
“That is why you lost.”
“Yes, sir, that is certainly why we lost.”
The pale blue wolf eyes stayed on me, unblinking, obliging me to snatch my cap off while I stared back at him.
“You speak excellent Russian,” he said. “Where did you learn it?”
“From Russians. I told you, Major, I was an intelligence officer. That generally means you have to be something more than just intelligent. With me it was the fact that I’d learned Russian. But it wasn’t the same standard of Russian you’ve described until I came here, Your Honor. I have the great Stalin to thank for that.”
“You were a spy, Captain. Isn’t that right?”
“No, sir. I was always in uniform. Which means if I had been a spy I’d have been a rather stupid one. And as I told you already, sir, I was in intelligence. It was my job to monitor Russian radio broadcasts, read Russian newspapers, speak to Russian prisoners…”
“Did you ever torture a Russian prisoner?”
“No, sir.”
“A Russian would never give information to fascists unless he was tortured.”
“I expect that’s why I never got any information from Russian prisoners, sir. Not once. Not ever.”
“So what makes the SGO think that you can get it from German plenis.”
“That’s a good question, sir. You would have to ask him that.”
“His brother is a war criminal. Did you know that?”
“No, sir.”
“He was a doctor at the Buchenwald concentration camp,” said Major Savostin. “He carried out experiments on Russian POWs. The colonel claims not to be related to this person, but it’s my impression that Mrugowski is not a common name in Germany.”
I shrugged. “We can’t choose the people to whom we are related, sir.”
“Perhaps you are also a war criminal, Captain Gunther.”
“No, sir.”
“Come, now. You were in the SD. Everyone in the SD was a war criminal.”
“Look, sir, the SGO asked me to look into the murder of Wolfgang Gebhardt. He gave me the strange idea that you wanted to find out who did it. That if you didn’t find out, then twenty-five of my comrades were going to be picked out at random and shot for it.”
“You were misinformed, Captain. There is no death penalty in the Soviet Union. Comrade Stalin has abolished it. But they will stand trial for it, yes. Perhaps you yourself will be one of these men picked at random.”
“So it’s like that, is it?”
“Do you know who did it?”
“Not yet. But it sounds like you just handed me an extra incentive to find out.”
“Good. We understand each other perfectly. You’re excused from work for the next three days in order that you may solve the crime. I will inform the guards. How will you start?”
“Now that I’ve seen the body, by thinking. That’s what I normally do in these situations. It’s not very spectacular, but it gets results. Then I’d like permission to interview some of the prisoners, and perhaps some of the guards.”
“The prisoners, yes, the guards, no. It wouldn’t be right to have a good communist being cross-questioned by a fascist.”
“Very well. I’d also like to interview the surviving anti-fa agent, Kissel.”
“This I will have to think about. Now, then. It would not be appropriate for you to interview the other prisoners while they’re working. So you can use the canteen for that. And for thinking, yes, it might be best if you were to use Gebhardt’s hut. I’ll have the body removed immediately if you’re finished with it.”
I nodded.
“Very well, then. Please follow me.”
We walked to Gebhardt’s hut. Halfway there Savostin saw some guards and barked some orders in a language that wasn’t Russian and, noticing my curiosity, told me that it was Tatar.
“Most of these pigs who guard the camp are Tatars,” he explained. “They speak Russian, of course. But to make yourself clear you really have to speak Tatar. Perhaps you should try to learn.”