“And I thought the Nazis had the monopoly on this kind of goat’s shit.”
Geiger opened his cigarette case and offered me one. Then, taking me by the arm we went outside for a smoke. The summer sun was low behind the clouds now and the sky over Banja Luka was the color of blood. At the Serbian Orthodox cathedral, demolition work had stopped for the day but not the cruelty. I could hear a woman crying. Why had I come to this infernal place?
“You know, it seems to me that I’ve heard about this fellow, Colonel Dragan, on my first tour of duty down here. About both these men. Your Father Ladislaus and this Father Tomislav. I heard some pretty terrible things. The sort of things that could only happen here in Yugoslavia. This country is full of hate — the Father Abbot was right about that.”
“What did you hear, Geiger? What kind of things?”
“Terrible things. Something about two monks who were working with the Ustaše. Just a name, really. They used to call them Ante Pavelic’s twin priests of death. That’s right. The priests of death. I heard they killed a lot of people. Not just in battle. And not just partisans — people who need killing — but women and children, too.”
“Because they were Serbs?”
“Because they were Serbs. Look, Gunther, it’s none of my business what you do. But in this country, you’re a fish out of water. In Berlin you probably know what you’re doing, but down here, wearing that uniform, you’re just another target. My advice to you is to stay away from this Colonel Dragan, and from Jasenovac. Leave the minister’s letter here with this fellow, drive back to Zagreb, and get on the next plane home.”
“I’ve thought about that. Don’t think I haven’t. But I’ve a personal reason for making sure the letter gets into his hands. Besides, the minister won’t be too pleased with me if I tell him I could have met this fellow and then funked it. He might not sign my expenses, and then where will I be?”
“Alive. Look, I’m not kidding you. This colonel is a real monster. The fact is that even the SS don’t go to Jasenovac if we can possibly avoid it. The place used to be a brickworks, before the war, but now it’s a concentration camp. For Serbs. I believe there were some Jews in Jasenovac, at the beginning of the war, but they’re all dead now. Murdered by the Ustaše.”
After Smolensk, I wondered how bad things could be in Jasenovac. And after all, I was only delivering a letter. Surely I could do that in next to no time. Besides, I’d met the devil before; in fact I was pretty certain I used to work for him. Heydrich was my best guess as to what the devil was really like. And I could not conceive that Croatian mass murderers could be any worse than German mass murderers like him, or Arthur Nebe. But what was I going to tell Dalia Dresner? That her father was a monster? I didn’t think she was going to be pleased to hear something like that.
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’m tougher than I look.”
“No, you look tough enough. That’s not the problem. The problem is that I’ve seen inside your soul, Gunther. There’s still a sliver of decency left in there. There’s your fucking problem. What does Nietzsche say? A man might think he can stare into the abyss without falling in but sometimes the abyss stares back. Sometimes the abyss exerts a strange effect on your sense of balance. Take it from one who knows.”
I shrugged. “I’m still going to Jasenovac. Besides, like you said, it’s on the way back to Zagreb.”
“I like you, Gunther,” said Geiger. “I don’t know why, but I do. Maybe it’s that sliver of decency in you. I envy you that. Me, I’m up to my elbows in blood. But you. You’re different. I don’t know how you’ve managed it in the SD but you have and I admire that. So, you give me no alternative but to go to Jasenovac with you. Think about it. You don’t speak Croatian. Or Bosnian-Serb. Besides, suppose you run into some Proles? Or some hostile musclemen?”
Musclemen was what Oehl was in the habit of calling Muslims.
“I told you. These bastards like to make you suck your own dick. You need me and the sergeant riding shotgun on the road with you. Besides, we’ve got another car now. With a driver. So you’ll be even safer than you were before.”
I had to admit he had a point.
“What about rejoining your SS unit?” I said.
Geiger shrugged. “There’s plenty of time to do that. Besides, now we’re here in Banja Luka, I know a good place to eat and to stay. Tonight you’re my guest. And we’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
Twenty-three
It was a beautiful warm day and we made excellent progress back along the narrow road to Jasenovac. I’d managed to persuade myself that once there I would be halfway back to Zagreb and then Germany, which would somehow make everything all right. You can stand to see almost anything provided you know it isn’t going to be for very long. Reeking of alcohol, Geiger dozed in the passenger seat beside me, while Oehl and another SS man followed in the car behind. A couple of times we saw Ustaše trucks heading the other way but the men inside them paid us little regard. Once or twice we heard the sound of small-arms fire in the distance and as a precaution stopped for a while and had a smoke. But if it was Proles, we didn’t see them. Our new companion, a Croatian SS corporal called Schwörer, was a boy not much older than the one Geiger had shot the previous day. His hair looked like fine gold thread and his complexion was as fair as a schoolgirl’s. He didn’t say much. It wasn’t a place for conversation. He tried to match us smoke for smoke but ended up puking at the side of the road after turning himself green with tobacco, which Geiger thought was very funny. We set off again and, after a couple of hours, we slowed to cross a wooden bridge near the confluence of the Sava and Una rivers. Underneath the light mist that hung above the water like the breath of some foul underwater creature, something caught my eye. I stopped the car and got out to take a look and quickly lit a cigarette when I heard the whine of a mosquito. I never did take to being bitten by anything very much, even if it was female. For a brief moment I thought the object in the water was someone swimming. But as I was about to discover, we were a long way from Wannsee and the Havel and anything as innocent as swimming.
“What is it?” asked Geiger.
“I’m not sure.”
I pointed at the river and waited for the slow, mud-brown water to bring the object nearer but I already had a strong suspicion about what it was. It was a woman’s body, still wearing a floral dress, and it floated right under the bridge we were standing on — close enough to see that her hands were tied behind her back, her eyes had been gouged out, and a large piece of her head was missing. A second body and then a third were in the water not far behind her and these were women, too, also mutilated. Schwörer stared impassively at these bodies and I got the strong impression that despite his innocent-looking face he was already familiar with such sights as this.
“This river goes right through Jasenovac before it gets here,” said Geiger.
“On its way to Hades, perhaps. And meaning you think that’s where they were killed. In Jasenovac.”
“Probably.”
“Shit.”
“I did warn you it wasn’t a place for us. I believe there used to be an SS office at Jasenovac until they closed it a year ago, after the last Jews there were killed. That’s the official reason. No more Jews, no more German interest. What the UNS do with Serbs is their own affair. But from what I heard, the five Germans who had stayed on there couldn’t take it anymore and left, without permission. So it must have been bad. As bad as this, I guess.”