Michael Russell - The City of Shadows

‘Stefan Gillespie.’

‘You don’t know our Mr Lester then?’ There was a hint of suspicion in Greiser’s face again. He wasn’t trying to hide his dislike for Sean Lester.

‘We’re a small country, Herr Greiser, but not that small.’

‘Danzig is smaller. We know everyone. Warts and all! Such warts too!’

He turned abruptly and shouted along the aisle of the plane. ‘Schnapps!’ He looked back. ‘You’ll have a drink?’

Stefan didn’t want any more to drink, but he already knew Greiser would insist. He wasn’t a difficult man to read. It was easier to say yes.

‘We’ve left Germany now,’ reflected Greiser, looking out at the dark. ‘We’re over what was Germany before the end of the war, and what will be Germany again. We’re supposed to call it the Polish Corridor. German towns with Polish names. As for our Danzig Free State, it will be free again only when it is part of Germany. We all know it. The world knows it. Even the Poles must know. But you’re Irish. I don’t need to tell you. You know all about fighting for freedom, my friend?’ He raised his glass. ‘To freedom!’

As Stefan raised his glass, Greiser’s was already empty. He called out. ‘Another schnapps!’

The steward returned with the bottle. The German took it off him.

‘We have a guest to entertain!’

‘Jawohl, Herr Senatsprasident!’ The answer was delivered with a heel click, and Stefan was now aware that this was a man of some importance.

‘Where are you staying, Herr Gillespie?’

‘The Danziger Hof.’

‘Not bad. We have better. Busy but discreet, very discreet.’

He smirked and Stefan returned the man-of-the-world smile that was required. Greiser leant across and topped up Stefan’s glass. He filled his own and drained it again. The bottle would be going back to the Luft Hansa steward empty.

‘If there’s anything I can do during your stay, Herr Gillespie, I’d be delighted. Mention my name at your hotel, in a restaurant, wherever. My name is enough.’ He puffed himself up as he spoke the last words. He poured himself a third schnapps and then settled back in his seat again.

‘We have things in common after all. A common struggle, and even, one is not encouraged to say it too loudly just now, a common enemy.’ Arthur Greiser tapped his nose, then carried on, unconcerned whether his travelling companion was interested in what he was saying or not. ‘Germany had no choice about leaving the League of Nations. It’s a farce. Run by the English and paid for by the Americans. Look at Lester, our so-called High Commissioner. Everyone knows he’s too close to the English. Can’t have made him too popular in Ireland, eh? We’ll see the back of him after the elections. He’s going to find Danzig just a little too hot. And when we call on him with his train ticket to Geneva, he will be well advised to take it.’

Herr Greiser shook his head and chuckled, clearly expecting Stefan to understand. He didn’t, but he smiled politely anyway. The Free City’s Senate President poured another schnapps; he had forgotten about his guest’s glass now. These weren’t the first glasses of schnapps he’d had that day. Moments later Stefan was relieved to see the balding head thrown back in the seat. There was a faint snore too. The schnapps bottle was about to fall from Greiser’s hand. Stefan started to reach over but another hand was there first. The steward caught the bottle as he moved through the plane, with a deft assurance that made it look as if he had been waiting there for it to fall.

The plane had flown over the lights of the Free City for only minutes, out of the darkness of surrounding fields and forests. As the Junkers turned to descend, Stefan Gillespie saw where the lights of Danzig and its harbour ended abruptly. He knew that beyond it was the Baltic Sea, now just a deeper blackness in the blackness of the night. Danzig-Langfuhr Aerodrome was little more than a collection of hangars in a field. The other passengers headed for the small brick terminal building, but the Senate President’s big Mercedes-Benz was standing on the tarmac as they stepped out of the plane. A small shield on the radiator grille showed the crown and two white crosses on red of the Free City of Danzig, but the pennants that flew from each wing were swastikas. Arthur Greiser thrust his arm through Stefan’s and pulled him into the black limousine while the chauffeur held the door open for them.

The effects of the schnapps were evident on Greiser’s breath and in his behaviour. Stefan, for this short journey at least, was a new friend, a best friend. There would be no taxi for the Senate President’s friend! Arthur Greiser’s arrival home had brought the election back to the front of his mind. It was only days away now. He filled the first half of the drive to the city with scatological references to the socialists and Jews who would be swept away by the election, and the sham democracy that would be swept away by the election, and the Poles and their fucking priests who would be swept away by the election, and the need for any further elections that would be swept away by the election. And when everything that had to be swept away had been swept away, there would be a golden future. It would bring the city of Danzig back into the arms of the fatherland, which was sometimes the motherland, depending on whether Greiser’s feelings were martial or sentimental.

By the time they reached the outskirts of the city, the Senatsprasident was, thankfully, asleep again. The chauffeur, who seemed almost as pleased about that as Stefan, delivered him to the door of the Hotel Danziger Hof.

Greiser was right about one thing; his name, or in this case his car, with the sight of him snoring in the back seat, was enough. It was enough to bring the hotel manager out of his office to promise Stefan the best room he had available, and his personal attention at any time of the day or night. His expression changed when Stefan asked if Frau Anna Harvey was there. That was the name Hannah had been using, Mrs Anna Harvey, of Blackrock, Dublin. The manager looked puzzled, then angry, then puzzled again, as if he couldn’t relate the man who had got out of the Senate President’s car to the question he had just been asked. No, she wasn’t there. She certainly wasn’t there. In fact Frau Harvey had walked out of the hotel after only one night, one night when she’d booked a room for two, without a word to anyone. She had left her belongings in the room. And she hadn’t paid her bill.

Stefan stood in the luggage store behind the concierge’s desk at the Hotel Danziger Hof. Hannah Rosen’s small case, bearing a label with the name Mrs Anna Harvey, contained very little. There was not much more than a change of clothes and some underwear; a bag with soap, a flannel, toothpaste; make-up and a bottle of Chanel No. 11; a bracelet, a brush. He had seen her take off that bracelet and put it beside his bed. There were strands of her dark hair in the brush. He smelt the scent of her perfume. The porter who showed him the case had spoken to her before she left the hotel, the morning after she’d arrived. It was two days ago now. She had asked him for directions to the cathedral in Oliva. That was all. The man seemed slightly nervous, as if he had something more to say. When Stefan turned to leave he pushed a banknote into the porter’s hand. It was a five dollar bill. Adam Rosen had given him a roll of dollars at Baldonnel that morning. It was a lot more than the man expected. It was enough. He stepped in front of Stefan and pushed the door back into the lobby firmly shut. Stefan waited.

‘The police were here that night looking for her.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘They said she hadn’t registered her passport.’

‘You don’t think that was it though?’