Philip Kerr - Field Grey

'The last time I did this I got twenty-five years hard labour,' I said. 'So, if you'll forgive me, I really don't have anything to say.'

'If you wish,' said one of the officers, 'you may appeal the verdict. Did the court tell you that?'

'No. What the court did tell me was that the Soviets are every bit as stupid and brutal as the Nazis.'

'It's interesting you say that.'

I didn't reply.

'It seems to support an impression we have of you, Captain Gunther. That you're not a Nazi.'

Meanwhile the other officer had picked up a telephone and was saying something in Russian, that I could not hear.

'I'm Major Weltz,' said the first officer. He looked at the man now replacing the telephone receiver. 'And this is Lieutenant Rascher.'

I grunted.

'Like you, I am also from Berlin,' said Weltz. 'As a matter of fact I was there just last weekend. I'm afraid you'd hardly recognise it. Incredible the destruction that was inflicted by Hitler's refusal to surrender.' He pushed a packet of cigarettes across the table. 'Please. Help yourself to a cigarette. I'm afraid they're Russian but they're better than nothing.'

I took one.

'Here,' he said, coming around the desk and snapping open a lighter. 'Let me light that for you.'

He sat down on the edge of the table and watched me smoke. Then the door opened and a starshina came in, carrying a sheet of paper. He laid it on the table next to the cigarettes and left again without saying a word.

Weltz glanced at the sheet of paper for a moment and then turned it to face me.

'Your appeal form,' he said.

My eyes flicked across the Cyrillic letters.

'Would you like me to translate it?'

'That won't be necessary. I can read and speak Russian.'

'Very well, too, by all accounts.' He handed me a fountain pen and waited for me to sign the sheet of paper. 'Is there a problem?'

'What's the point?' I said, dully

'There's every point. The government of the Soviet Union has its forms and formalities like every other country. Nothing happens without a piece of paper. It was the same in Germany, was it not? An official form for everything.'

Again I hesitated.

'You want to go home, don't you? To Berlin? Well, you can't go home unless you've been released and you can't be released unless you appeal your sentence first. Really, it's as simple as that. Oh, I'm not promising anything, but this form puts the process into motion. Think of it like that pithead winding gear outside. That piece of paper makes the wheel start to move.'

I read the form forwards and then backwards: sometimes, things in the Soviet Union and its zones of occupation made more sense if you read them backwards.

I signed it, and Major Weltz drew the form towards him.

'So, at least we know that you do want to get out of here,' he said. 'To go home. Now that we've established that much all we have to do is figure out a way of making that happen. I mean sooner rather than later. To be exact, twenty-five years from now. That is if you survive what anyone here will tell you is hazardous work. Personally, I don't much care to be even this close to large deposits of uranite. Apparently they turn it into this yellow powder that glows in the dark. God only knows what it does to people.'

"Thanks, but I'm not interested.'

'We haven't told you what we're offering yet,' said Weltz. 'A job. As a policeman. I would have thought that might appeal to a man with your qualifications.'

'A man who was never a member of the Nazi Party,' said Lieutenant Rascher. 'A former member of the Social Democratic Party.'

'Did you know, Captain, that the KPD and the SDP have joined together?'

'It's a bit late,' I said. 'We could have used the support of the KPD in December 1931. During the Red Revolution.'

'That was Trotsky's fault,' said Weltz. 'Anyway. Better late than never, eh? The new party – the Socialist Unity Party, the SED – it represents a fresh start for us both to work together. For a new Germany.'

'Another new Germany?' I shrugged.

'Well, we can hardly make do with the old one. Wouldn't you agree? There's so much that we have to rebuild. Not just politics, but law and order, too. The police force. We're starting a new force. For the moment it's being called the Fifth Kommissariat, or K-5. We hope to have it up and running by the end of the year. And until then we're looking for recruits. A man such as yourself, a former Oberkommissar with Kripo, with a record for honesty and integrity, who was chased out of the force by the Nazis, is just the sort of principled man we need. I think I can probably guarantee reinstatement at your old rank, with full pension rights. A Berlin weighted allowance. Help with a new apartment. A job for your wife.'

'No thanks.'

'That's too bad,' said Lieutenant Rascher.

'Look, why don't you think it over, Captain?' said Weltz.

'Sleep on it. You see, to be perfectly honest with you, Gunther, you're at the top of our list in this camp. And, for obvious reasons, we'd rather not stay here longer than we have to. I'm already a father, but the lieutenant here has no wish to damage his chances of having a son if and when he marries. You see radiation does something to a man's ability to procreate. It also affects the thyroid and the body's ability to use energy and make proteins. At least, that's what I think it does.'

'The answer is still no,' I said. 'May I go now?'

The major adopted a rueful expression. 'I don't understand you,' he said. 'How is it that you, a social democrat, were prepared to go and work for Heydrich? And yet you won't work for us. Can you explain that please?'

It was now I realised who the major reminded me of. The uniform might have been different but with the white blond hair, blue eyes, high forehead and even loftier tone, I was already thinking of Heydrich before he mentioned the name. Probably Weltz and Heydrich would have been about the same age, too. If he hadn't been murdered, Heydrich would have been about forty-two now. The younger lieutenant was rather more grey- haired, with a face as wide as the major's was long. He looked like me before the war and a year in a POW camp.

'Well, Gunther? What have you to say for yourself? Perhaps you were always just a Nazi in all but name. A Party fellow traveller. Is that it? Did it take you this long to understand what you really are?'

'You and Heydrich,' I said to the major. 'You're not so very different. I never wanted to work for him either, but I was afraid to say no. Afraid of what he might do to me. You, on the other hand, have shot your bolt there. You've already done your worst. Short of shooting me there's not much more you can actually do to me. Sometimes it's a great comfort to know that you've already hit rock bottom.'

'We could break you,' said Weltz. 'We could do that.'

'I've broken a few men myself, in my time,' I said. 'But there has to be some point to it. And with me there isn't, because if you break me then you'd be doing it just for the Hell of it and what's more I'd be no good to you when you were finished. I'm no good to you now, only you just don't know it, Major. So let me tell you why. I was the kind of cop who was too dumb to act smart and look the other way, or to kiss someone's behind. The Nazis were cleverer than you. They knew that. The only reason Heydrich brought me back to Kripo was because he knew that even in a police state there are times when you need a real policeman. But you don't want a real policeman, Major Weltz, you want a clerk with a badge. You want me to read Karl Marx at bedtime and people's mail during the day. You want a man who's eager to please and looking for advancement in the Communist Party.' I shook my head wearily. 'The last time I was looking for advancement in a party a pretty girl slapped my face.'