It was dark in the hotel. One of the small windows had been blocked up with a piece of timber. Gradually I made out a few dust-covered tables and chairs and a bar of sorts where Geiger was banging the counter with the flat of his hand and shouting for service. Eventually a man appeared from a back room. He was wearing a black felt hat with a red carnation on the brim, a filthy white shirt, and a black waistcoat. The red carnation struck me as a ludicrous embellishment for an innkeeper to be wearing when there was a hanged man decorating his doorway.
Geiger addressed him three times and on each occasion the man shook his head before finally he said something that Geiger seemed to think was very funny; he was still laughing when he came back to the table where Oehl and I were waiting, and sat down.
“Three times I asked that Slovenian bastard for coffee,” he said. “Once in Croatian, kava. Then in Bosnian, which is kahva, and the third time in Serbian, which is kafe. And each time he says no, right? Like you saw? By now I’m thinking he hates Croats, or hates Germans. Maybe that’s his fucking brother hanging on the lamppost outside, right? So I said to him, ‘What’s the problem, why is there no fucking coffee? I’ve asked you nicely, haven’t I, you bastard?’ And he said, ‘We’ve got coffee, all right, we just don’t have any water with which to make it.’”
Geiger started laughing again as if this were the funniest thing he’d heard in a while; and, judging from his face, maybe it was. I’d never met a more unpredictable man. His smile seemed just as likely to presage something awful as something amusing or pleasant. I lit a cigarette and said nothing. By now I was starting to realize the price that was going to have to be paid for my night with Dalia Dresner. It was the price that Faust pays, perhaps, for a night spent with Helen of Troy.
“See if you can find something to drink, Sergeant,” said Geiger. “I’ll make some light in this Neanderthal’s cave so we can see what we’re doing.” And while Oehl disappeared into the back of the hotel Geiger stood up, smashed the chair he was sitting on into many pieces, and tossed them into the fireplace alongside some old newspapers. He lit a match and tried to make a fire, but without success. He was still trying to light it when Oehl came back with some bread and cheese, and three tall stoneware bottles.
“Plum rakija,” he said. “Homemade.”
“You’ll never get that fire started,” I told Geiger. “Not without smaller sticks or some wood shavings.”
Oehl opened one of the bottles and tasted it, let out a gasp and handed it to Geiger. “Fucking hell. This is good stuff. I reckon there’s more alcohol in this than was inside my old grandpa on the day he died.”
“Nonsense,” Geiger told me, “I’ll get this going in just a few seconds,” and without a moment’s hesitation he took a huge mouthful of spirit and then gobbed it all into the fireplace, at which point the whole wall and some of the floor — not just the fireplace — went up in a ball of fire as if a flamethrower had fired blazing oil and petrol into an enemy trench.
I jumped out of the way but not soon enough as I felt my eyebrows scorch, much to Geiger’s loud amusement.
“What are you trying to do, you lunatic?” I yelled. “You’ll set the whole place ablaze if you’re not careful.”
“I told you I’d get that fire going, didn’t I?”
Oehl smiled and handed me his flask. “Here, Captain,” he said, “sit down and have a drink. Welcome to Croatia. This is proper rakija. Not that milky whore’s piss we were drinking earlier. Best you’ve got a real drink inside you when we cross the River Sava.”
I took a drink to calm my nerves and stop me from punching Geiger in the mouth.
“You’re right, Sergeant,” he said, still laughing. “This is the good stuff. Must be eighty proof. You give an army enough of this, you could conquer the world.”
“Or just burn it down,” I said.
Geiger frowned. “Same thing.”
Twenty-one
The River Sava was faster and bigger than I’d expected, at least thirty meters across and as brown as my leather belt. The bridge — the only one for miles that hadn’t been destroyed — was a through-truss iron bridge on which a large Ustaše checkpoint had been erected, complete with two 20-millimeter Flak guns and a German-built half-track. From some of the ten or fifteen men lounging in the sun on top of the sandbags surrounding the 20-millimeters, Geiger and Oehl learned that there was a band of Bosnian Muslim partisans operating along the Prijedor Road — which was the more direct, southerly route to Banja Luka — and they strongly advised us to go east, along the road to Gradiška, before turning south.
“Bosnian Muslim partisans,” I said as, taking the Ustaše’s advice, we drove across and then away from the bridge toward the east. “Shouldn’t they be on our side? If they’re Muslims?”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” said Geiger. “But they’re not. You’d think they hated Jews, like us. But they don’t. Nothing down here is what it should be.”
“Nothing,” said Oehl.
“So, if we see any fucking Muslims between here and Banja Luka, we shoot first and ask questions later. Got that?”
I might have argued with them about this until both men opened the bolts on their daddies and pointed them over the side of the Mercedes. When you’re a long way from home you get to know when it’s best to keep your mouth shut. Even so, Geiger seemed to sense my discomfort and felt obliged to offer an explanation.
“Last week the sergeant and I were in Berlin-Babelsberg, helping to train the Handschar. A Bosnian Muslim SS Division that’s supposed to be under the control of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Only it’s not. That pie-head couldn’t control his own wind. You see, a lot of these Muslim bastards don’t even want to be in the SS. And they certainly didn’t want to leave their homes in Bosnia. Half of them only volunteered so they could pawn the boots and the uniform. They’ve gone to France now, most of them, for further training, but in our opinion they’re not to be relied on. None of them are. They’ve got no love for Catholics, and they’ve got even less for the Ustaše. That mosque you mentioned. It means nothing. The Poglavnik — that’s what Ante Pavelic calls himself; it’s a bit like your Führer — he made that mosque just for show, really. To try to win the Muslims over and because he and Himmler thought they were pure Aryans, and because they hated Jews. But they’re not and they don’t. What’s more, there aren’t any Muslims in the Ustaše administration and there are not likely to be, either. A lot of Ustaše units have burned Muslim villages because some Muslims sided with the Serbs. The Muslims know that. Which is why a lot of them now fight with the partisans.”
“Don’t trust anyone who’s not wearing a uniform,” muttered Oehl, “that’s what I say.”
Geiger patted the submachine gun on his knee. “But we’re ready for them if they want us to send them to heaven. That’s what they believe, you see, Gunther. If they get killed in action, fighting for Allah, they are ushered immediately into God’s presence. Into Paradise. A Paradise with delicious food and drink and seventy-two female companions.”
“After that week in Babelsberg I’ll be happy to oblige any one of them who wants his ticket upstairs,” said Oehl. “And that’s the truth.”
“Maybe the captain here doesn’t believe in heaven,” said Geiger. “How about it, Gunther? Do you believe in Paradise?”