Philip Kerr - Prague Fatale

On the desk was a Brumberg table lamp with a parchment shade, and on the floor a dull maroon Turkish kilim. There were some towels on the end of my bed and the door had a key and a bolt, for which I was grateful. Absurdly so. When you’re in a house that’s already full of murderers it’s perhaps foolish to think that locking your door is going to keep you safe. There were bars on the lower-floor windows but not on those of the upper floor. The window in my room, which had some sturdy brass bolts, had a fixed windowpane and two casements that opened out onto the back garden. There was a roller blind for summer and some thick red curtains for when the weather turned colder, which, in that part of the world, it always does.

I poked my head outside. The ground was about five or six metres below the window ledge. In the centre of a circular bed of flowers a sprinkler was a whirling dervish of water and rhythm. Beyond that was a gravel path lined with neatly trimmed bushes and then a thick clump of trees. And on the lawn was another stone group of escaping deer that was perhaps a pair to the one in the front garden.

I lay on my bed and finished my drink and smoked my cigarette. These did little to calm me. To be under the same roof as Heydrich made me nervous. I got up and poured myself another drink, which helped, but only a little. Whatever he wanted, I knew it wouldn’t sit well with my conscience, which was already badly bruised, and I resolved that when eventually he got around to explaining what this was, I would tell him, as politely as I could, to go to hell. There was no way I was ever going back to the Ukraine to perform some loathsome act of genocide and it really didn’t matter if that meant being sent to a concentration camp. I wasn’t the same as any of those other bastards in uniform. I wasn’t even a Nazi. Perhaps they needed reminding of that. Perhaps it was time I repeated my allegiance to the old Republic. If they were looking for an excuse to throw me out of the SD then I would hand them one. Arianne was surely right: if more people stood up to Heydrich the way I’d stood up to the Labour leader on the train then, maybe, things would change. More people would be dead, too, including myself, but that couldn’t be helped. Lately that didn’t seem so bad. That’s what I told myself, anyway. It might have been the schnapps. And of course I wouldn’t know for sure until the time came. But I knew it was going to take some courage on my part because I was also afraid. That’s the only way I know that you can distinguish being brave from being stupid.

‘That’s rather beautiful, don’t you think?’

I was looking at a dazzling modern picture of a dark-haired femme fatale. She was wearing a fabulous long dress that seemed to be made of golden Argus eyes, all set against a radiantly primordial golden background. There was something terrifying about the woman herself. She looked like some remorseless Egyptian queen who had been made ready for eternity by a group of economists who were slaves to the gold standard.

‘Unfortunately it’s a copy. The original was stolen by that greedy fat bastard Herman Goring and is now in his private collection, where nobody but him can see it. More’s the pity.’

I was in the Lower Castle library. Through the window I could see the back garden where several SS and SD officers were already collected on the terrace. The officer speaking to me was about thirty, tall, thin, and rather effete. He had white blond hair and a duelling scar on his face. The three pips on his black collar-patch told me he was an SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer — a captain, like me; and the monkey swing of silver braid on his tunic — properly called an aiguillette, but only by people who knew their way around a dictionary of military words — indicated he was an aide-de-camp, most likely Heydrich’s.

‘Are you Doctor Ploetz?’ I asked.

‘Good God, no.’ He clicked his heels. ‘Hauptsturmfuhrer Albert Kuttner, fourth adjutant to General Heydrich, at your service. No, you’ll know when you meet Ploetz. It will feel like someone left a freezer door open.’

‘Cold, huh?’

‘I’ve met warmer glaciers.’

‘How many adjutants does he have?’

‘Oh, just the four. A man for each season. There’s myself. Captains Pomme and Kluckholn. And Major Ploetz, who’s the Chief Adjutant. You’ll have the great pleasure of meeting them all while you’re here.’

‘I can’t wait.’

Kuttner smiled a knowing smile, as if he and I were already occupying the same forbidden radio frequency. ‘And you, I assume, must be Captain Gunther.’ He shook his head. ‘The Berlin accent. It’s quite unmistakable. By the way, the General doesn’t go in for the Hitler salute very much, while we’re here at the castle.’

‘That suits me. I don’t go in for Hitler salutes much myself.’

‘Yes. The General likes to keep things very informal. So mess rules apply. No belts worn.’ He nodded at my crossbelts. ‘That kind of thing.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, unbuckling the crossbelt I was wearing.

‘Also, it’s fine to introduce yourself with your SS rank but, after that, do try not to use SS ranks when describing yourself or a brother officer. Army ranks or surnames save time. The General’s very keen on saving time. He often says that while we delay time does not and that lost time is never found again. Very true, what?’

‘He’s always been very quotable, the General. You must try to write some of these sayings down. For the sake of posterity.’

Kuttner shook his head. It seemed he wasn’t quite on my own frequency after all.

‘That wouldn’t do at all. The General hates people writing down what he says. It’s an idiosyncrasy he has.’

I smiled. ‘It’s evidence, that’s what it is.’

Kuttner smiled back. ‘Yes, I see what you mean. Very good. Very good.’

‘I guess that’s why he has four adjutants,’ I added. ‘To help keep everything off the record.’

‘Yes, I hadn’t thought of that. But you could be right.’

I turned back to the golden picture in front of us. ‘Who is she, anyway?’

‘Her name is Adele Bloch-Bauer and her husband, Ferdinand, used to own this house. A Jew, which makes you wonder why Goring likes her so much. But there it is. Consistency not his strong suit, I’d say. It’s a nice copy of course but I think it a great pity that the original isn’t in the house, where it truly belongs. We’re trying to persuade the Reichsmarshal to give it back, but so far without much success. He’s like a dog with a bone when it comes to paintings, I believe. Anyway, one can easily see why he likes it so much. To say that Frau Bloch-Bauer looked like a million marks hardly seems to do her portrait justice. Wouldn’t you agree?’

I nodded and allowed myself another look, not at the painting but at Captain Kuttner. For a man who was Heydrich’s adjutant, his free and frank opinions seemed to veer toward the dangerous. A bit like my own. It was clear we had more in common than just a uniform and a keen appreciation of modern art.

‘It’s different,’ I allowed.

‘Superficially stylish, perhaps. But somehow even a copy is deeper than the gold paint, which seems almost to have been spilled onto the canvas. Eh?’

‘You sound like Bernard Berenson, Captain Kuttner.’

‘Lord, don’t say that. At least not within earshot of the General. Berenson’s a Jew.’

‘What happened to her anyway?’ I lit a cigarette. ‘To the golden lady in the picture?’

‘Sad to say, and rather ingloriously given how she looks in this painting, the poor woman died of meningitis in 1925. Still, that might turn out to be just as well, when one considers what is happening to Jews in this country. And in her native Austria.’