Mario Puzo: Six Graves To Munich

He made his preparations very carefully. He had his company appoint him as its European sales representative, with letters of introduction to computer firms in Germany and Austria. He had no fear of being recognized. His terrible wound and his years of suffering had changed his appearance a great deal; and besides, he was a dead man. So far as his interrogators knew, they had killed Captain Michael Rogan.

Rogan took a plane to Vienna and set up his business headquarters there. He checked into the Sacher Hotel, had a fine dinner, with the renowned Sachertorte for dessert, and sipped brandy in the hotel’s famous Red Bar. Later he took a walk through the twilit streets, listening to the zither music emanating from the cafés. He walked for a long time, until he was relaxed enough to return to his room and sleep.

During the next two weeks, through friendly Austrians he met at two computer firms, Rogan got himself invited to the important parties in Vienna. Finally, at a municipal ball, which the city bureaucrats had to attend, he met Albert Moltke. He was surprised that the man had changed so much. The face had mellowed with good living and good food. The hair was silver gray. The whole attitude of his body suggested the politician’s surface politeness. And on his arm was his wife, a slender, cheerful-looking woman, obviously much younger than he was and obviously much in love with him. When he noticed Rogan staring at him, Moltke bowed politely, as if to say, “Yes, thank you for voting for me. I remember you very well, of course. Come and see me any time in my office.” It was the bow of an expert politician. No wonder he beat the rap when he’d been tried as a war criminal, Rogan thought. And he took some pleasure in knowing that it was the acquittal and the resultant photograph in the newspapers that had sentenced Albert Moltke to death.

Albert Moltke had bowed to the stranger, though his feet were killing him and he was wishing with all his heart that he was back home beside his own fireplace drinking black coffee and eating Sachertorte . These fêtes were a bore, but after all the Partei had to raise election funds somehow. And he owed it to his colleagues after they had supported him so loyally during the late troubled times. Moltke felt his wife, Ursula, press his arm, and he bowed again to the stranger, feeling vaguely that it was someone important, someone he should remember more clearly.

Yes, the Partei and his dear Ursula had rallied around when he had been accused as a war criminal. And after he had been acquitted the trial turned out to be his best piece of luck. He had won election to one of the local councils, and his political future, though limited, was assured. It would be a good living. But then the disturbing thought came as it always came: What if the Partei and Ursula found out the charges were true? Would his wife still love him? Would she leave him if she knew the truth? No, she could never believe him capable of such crimes, no matter what the proof. He could hardly believe it himself. He had been a different man then-harder, colder, stronger. In those times one had to be like that to survive. And yet… and yet… how could it be? When he tucked his two young children in bed his hands sometimes hesitated in the act of touching them. Such hands could not touch such innocence. But the jury had freed him. They had acquitted him after weighing all the evidence, and he could not be tried again. He, Albert Moltke, was forever innocent, according to law. And yet… and yet…

The stranger was coming toward him. A tall, powerfully built man, with an oddly shaped head. Handsome, in a dark German way. But then Albert Moltke noticed the well-tailored suit. No, this man was an American, obviously. Moltke had met many of them since the war, in the transaction of business. He smiled his welcome and turned to introduce his wife, but she had wandered off a few steps and was talking to someone else. And then the American was introducing himself. His name sounded something like Rogan and this, too, was vaguely familiar to Moltke. “Congratulations on your promotion to the Recordat . And congratulations on your acquittal some time ago.”

Moltke gave him a polite smile. He recited his standard speech. “A patriotic jury did its duty and decided, fortunately for me, for an innocent fellow German.”

They chatted awhile. The American suggested that he could use some legal help on setting up his computer business. Moltke became interested. He knew that the American really meant he wanted to bypass a few city taxes. Moltke, knowing from past experience that this could make him rich, took the American by the arm and said, “Why don’t we get a little bit of fresh air, take a little stroll?” The American smiled and nodded. Moltke’s wife did not see them leave.

As they walked through the city streets the American asked casually, “Don’t you remember my face?”

Moltke grimaced and said, “My dear sir, you do seem familiar, but I meet a lot of people, after all.” He was a little impatient; he wished the American would get down to business.

With a slight sense of uneasiness, Moltke realized that now they were walking in a deserted alley. Then the American leaned close to Moltke’s ear and whispered something that almost made his heart stop beating: “Do you remember Rosenmontag, 1945? In Munich? In the Palace of Justice?”

And then Moltke remembered the face; and he was not surprised when the American said, “My name is Rogan.” With the fear that flooded through him there was overwhelming shame, as if for the first time he truly believed in his own guilt.

Rogan saw the recognition in Moltke’s eyes. He steered the little man deeper into the alley, feeling Moltke’s body trembling, trembling under his arm. “I won’t hurt you,” he said. “I only want some information about the other men, your comrades. I know Karl Pfann and the Freisling brothers. What were the names of the other three men, and where can I find them?”

Moltke was terrified. He started running clumsily down the alley. Rogan ran beside him, sprinting easily, as if the two of them were trotting together for exercise. Coming up on the Austrian’s left side, Rogan drew the Walther pistol from his shoulder holster. Still running, he fitted the silencer onto the barrel. He felt no pity; he considered no mercy. Moltke’s sins were etched in his brain, committed a thousand times in his memory. It had been Moltke who had smiled when Christine screamed in the next room, and who had murmured, “Come, don’t be so much a hero at your poor wife’s expense. Don’t you want your child to be born?” So reasonable, so persuasive, when he knew that Christine was already dead. Moltke was the least of them but the memories of him had to die. Rogan fired two shots into Moltke’s side. Moltke swooped forward in a falling glide; and Rogan kept running, out of the alley and onto a main street. The next day he took a plane to Hamburg.

In Hamburg it had been easy to track down Karl Pfann. Pfann had been the most brutal of the interrogators, but in such an animallike way that Rogan had despised him less than the others. Pfann had acted according to his true nature. He was a simple man, stupid and cruel. Rogan had killed him with less hatred than he had killed Moltke. It had gone exactly according to plan. What had not gone according to plan was Rogan’s meeting the German girl Rosalie, with her flower fragrance and her curious lack of emotion and her amoral innocence.

Now lying beside her in his Hamburg hotel room, Rogan ran his hands lightly over her body. He had told her everything, sure that she would not betray him-or perhaps in the hope that she would, and so end his murdering quest. “Still like me?” he asked.