Philip Kerr - A Man Without Breath

‘Please don’t tell me my duty, Dyakov,’ said Ahrens. ‘You might enjoy the field marshal’s confidence, but you don’t yet enjoy mine.’ With a face like a thundercloud he walked down the slope just as we heard Buhtz’s motorcycle start up and then roar away.

‘What’s up with Ahrens?’ asked Judge Conrad. ‘The silly ass.’

‘He’s all right,’ insisted Dyakov. ‘He just doesn’t like it that this nice place is already starting to look and smell like a shit heap.’ He laughed a big vulgar laugh. ‘That’s the trouble with you Germans. You have such sensitive noses. We Russians don’t even notice it when things smell bad. Eh, Peshkov?’ He elbowed the other man, who winced uncomfortably and then moved away.

‘That’s why we’ve got the same rotten government we’ve had since 1917,’ added Dyakov. ‘Because we have no sense of smell.’

*

Back in the signals room at Dnieper Castle there was a message for me from Berlin. Martin Quidde had already gone off duty and it was his junior signaller, Lutz – the man he believed was working secretly in the 537th for the Gestapo – who handed me the yellow envelope. He knew what the message said of course, because it was he who had decoded it, but I could see he was keen to ask me a question, and because when I can I like to keep the Gestapo as close as possible I offered him a Trummer from my little cigarette case and acted as if I was happy to talk for a while. But what I really wanted was to have someone in the Gestapo looking out for me, and sometimes, when you’re looking for a man to cover your back, it’s best to recruit the very person whose job it might be to put a knife in it.

‘Thanks very much, sir,’ he said, puffing with obvious enthusiasm. ‘These are the best cigarettes I’ve tasted in a while.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

‘Quidde says you’re not in the army at all but in the SD.’

‘That should tell you something.’

‘It should?’

‘It should tell you that you can trust me. That you can be frank with me.’

Lutz nodded, but it was plain I was going to have to let him have the run of the line for a while before I could land him at my feet.

‘This is not something that would be true of everyone in the 537th,’ I said, carefully. ‘Not everyone is committed to the Party the way you and I are, Lutz. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, loyalty – real loyalty – is a comparatively rare thing these days. People say “Heil Hitler” with alacrity, but for most of them it doesn’t mean a damn thing.’

‘That’s very true.’

‘It’s just a figure of speech, a trope. Do you know what a trope is, Lutz?’

‘I’m not sure I do, sir.’

‘It’s a word or phrase that has almost become a cliche. It implies that for some people the words no longer mean anything very much; that the words have been turned away from their normal meaning. A lot of people say “Heil Hitler” and make the salute merely as a way of ensuring that they don’t get into trouble with the Gestapo. But Adolf Hitler doesn’t mean much for these men, and certainly not what he means for you and me, Lutz. By which I mean SD men and Gestapo men. I’m right, aren’t I? That you’re with the Gestapo? No, you don’t need to answer that. I know what I know. But what I don’t yet know is if I can rely on you, Lutz. That I can count on you in a way I can count on no one else in this regiment. That I can talk to you in confidence perhaps, and that you can speak to me in the same way. Do I make myself plain?’

‘Yes sir. You can count on me, sir.’

‘Good. Now tell me something, Lutz, did you know those two dead signallers well?’

‘Yes, well enough.’

‘Were they good Nazis?’

‘They were-’ He hesitated. ‘They were good signallers sir.’

‘That’s not what I asked you.’

Lutz hesitated again, but this time it was only for a moment. ‘No, sir. Neither of them could ever have been described as that, I think. In fact I had already reported them to the Gestapo because I suspected them of being involved in some local black market.’

I shrugged. ‘That’s not uncommon with people who work in signals and in stores.’

‘I also reported them for certain remarks I considered to be disloyal. This was a couple of months ago. In February. Immediately after Stalingrad. What they said seemed especially disloyal after Stalingrad.’

‘You reported them to the Gestapo station at Gnezdovo, here in Smolensk?’

‘Yes. To a Captain Hammerschmidt.’

‘And what did he do?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’ Lutz coloured a little. ‘Ribe and Greiss weren’t even questioned, and I asked myself why I had bothered. I mean, it’s no small thing to denounce someone for treason, especially when it’s a comrade.’

‘Is that what it was, do you think? Treason?’

‘Oh yes. They were always making jokes about the leadership. I asked them to stop but they took no notice. If anything, it got worse. When the leader was here a few weeks ago, I suggested we go down to the road and watch out for his car as it drove past on the way to headquarters at Krasny Bor. They just laughed and proceeded to make more jokes about the leader. Which made me really angry, sir. These were capital crimes, after all. I mean here we are, in the midst of a war for our very survival, and these two bastards were undermining the nation’s will to self-defence. Frankly I’m not at all sorry they are dead, sir, if it means I no longer have to listen to that kind of crap.’

‘Do you remember any of these jokes?’

‘Yes sir. One. Only I’d rather not repeat it.’

‘Come now, Lutz. No one is going to assume that it was your joke.’

‘Very well, sir. It goes like this. A bishop is visiting a local church and in the vestibule he notices three pictures hanging on the wall. There’s one of Hitler and one of Goring and there’s a picture of Jesus in the middle. The bishop questions the pastor of the church about this arrangement and the pastor tells the bishop that these three pictures help to remind him of what it says in the Bible – that Christ was nailed up between two criminals.’

I smiled to myself. I’d heard many permutations of this joke before, but not for a while. Most people who made jokes about the Nazis were just letting off steam, but for me, it always felt like an act of political resistance.

‘Yes, I can see why that would make anyone very angry,’ I told him. ‘Well, you did the right thing all the same. I imagine the Gestapo had more pressing matters to deal with ahead of the leader’s visit to Smolensk. I shall certainly make a point of seeking out this Captain Hammerschmidt and asking him why he didn’t think to question these men.’

Lutz nodded, but he hardly looked convinced by my explanation.

‘However, the next time you hear something you think affects our morale or security here in Smolensk, it might be best if you spoke to me first.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Good.’

‘There is one thing I wanted to ask you, sir.’

‘Go ahead, Lutz.’

‘This Doctor Batov who the Ministry of Enlightenment have told you can come to live in Germany. Can that be right, sir? He’s a Slav, isn’t he? And Slavs are racially contaminated. I thought that the whole point of our drive toward the East is to expel these inferior races, not to assimilate them into German society.’

‘You’re right, of course, but sometimes exceptions must be made, for the greater good. Dr Batov is going to perform a very important propaganda service for Germany. A very important service that might help to change the course of this war. I don’t exaggerate. As a matter of fact, I’m going to see him now, to tell him the good news. And for him to perform this service I was speaking of.’