Greg Iles - Black Cross

“I grew angry at him after a while. About his refusal to marry me, even secretly. I was a fool. One day he pulled the scales from my eyes. He told me about all his friends who had been forced out of business, or who had simply disappeared. I didn’t believe him at first. I lived in . . . in einem Traum . In a dream. Jewish professors had already been badgered out of the medical schools. Franz had received threatening letters. He showed me some. Only then did I understand. It was for my physical safety that he’d kept up the illusion that we had no relationship. He wanted to marry me more than anything.”

McConnell detected a hitch in Anna’s voice, but she got control of it again.

“The practice was almost as busy as ever. A few patients stopped coming, but not many. A caring doctor is not so easy to find. Too many worship the scalpel, yes? Or themselves.”

McConnell smiled. “I’ve known a few of those.”

“Franz was different. He felt a deep obligation to his patients. That’s why he wouldn’t stop. Finally the Nazis left him no room to squirm. They forbade Jewish doctors practicing at all. The line was drawn. Our receptionist refused to come to work. But not me. Every day for five weeks I did the work of two. And Franz was doing the work of ten. Visiting the old, delivering babies — he was one of the last. The funny thing is, many Aryans continued to see him. And he continued to treat them!” She drew a deep breath. “I apologize for dragging this out. It’s just . . . I haven’t told anyone about this since it happened. I couldn’t, you understand? Not my parents. Not even my sister. Especially not my sister.”

“I understand, Fräulein Kaas.”

“Do you? Do you know what finally happened?”

“They dragged him off to a concentration camp.”

“No. One fine morning a well-scrubbed SS boy — I mean it, he was younger than I — he walked into the waiting room and demanded to see the doctor. He had four friends with him, all dressed in black with their Death’s Head badges. Franz came into the waiting room wearing his white coat and stethoscope. The SS man informed him that the clinic was closed. Franz said no one had the right to stop him from treating the sick, no matter what uniform they wore. Franz told the boy to go home, then turned around to go back to work.”

A chill ran along McConnell’s neck and arms. “They didn’t kill him—”

“The boy pulled out a Walther and shot Franz in the back. The bullet shattered his spine.” Anna wiped tears from her cheeks. “He died within a minute on his own waiting-room floor.”

McConnell found nothing to say.

She raised her eyes. “You know what the worst of it was? There were German Christians in that waiting room when it happened. People Franz had treated for fifteen years. And not one of them — not one — uttered a sound of protest. Not even to the boy who had murdered their doctor before their very eyes!”

“Anna—”

“And Stern wonders why I hate the Nazis?” She balled her fists. “I tell you, if I weren’t such a coward I would kill Brandt myself!”

An odd thought struck McConnell then. “How in God’s name did you end up working in a concentration camp after that?”

She drank another slug of the vodka-laced coffee. “This really takes the prize. After I came back from the city, depressed and nearly destitute, my older sister took pity on me. And of course, she was in an excellent position to ‘help’ me. Her way of escaping the boredom of country life had been to marry the Gauleiter of Mecklenburg. Can you believe it? My sister Sabine is a rabid Nazi! She got me the job at Totenhausen, and I was in no position to turn it down. Honestly, the first time I toured Brandt’s hospital, it seemed almost like a civilian institution. What a fool I was!”

It was insane, thought McConnell, but typical of what the war had done to people around the world. “You mentioned courage before,” he said. “Your Franz Perlman had the kind of courage I admire. He had principles. Character. Conviction.”

“Yes,” Anna said to her coffee. “And now he is dead. In this world we have made, that’s where principles get you.”

“Maybe. But I’ll take that over capitulation anytime.”

“What about you, Doctor?” she said. “I gave you my confession. Give me yours. What keeps you from going up that hill and helping Stern?”

McConnell slid off the sofa and sat on the floor with his back against the leg rest. “It’s simple, really. It was my father. He was a doctor too. He’s dead now. He fought in World War One. Against the Germans, of course.”

“My uncle, too. He died at the Marne.”

“My father was gassed at St. Mihiel. Badly burned by mustard. He never really recovered.”

Anna touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure Freud would have a lot to say about my career choice,” McConnell said lightly. “I don’t really give a damn. I saw very young what war did to people, and I didn’t like it. I still don’t. When this one started, I tried to use my talents to prevent suffering, not inflict it. As you can see, the British weren’t satisfied with that.”

She leaned forward and looked down into his eyes. “You remind me a lot of Franz, Doctor. I think you are a good and kind man. But I don’t think you really understand what is happening in Germany.”

Anna got up and walked over to a shelf lined with what appeared to be old account books. “I would like you to look at something.”

She removed several books, then reached into the space behind and pulled out a small leather-bound volume, its cover worn to a dull shine. “This is my diary,” she said. “I began it the day after Franz was killed. In some ways it has been my only friend. The first part contains nothing of consequence — merely personal things. But somewhere around page thirty, I began to record my experiences at Totenhausen. I recorded every experiment I witnessed myself, as well as things I overheard Dr. Brandt confide to other doctors, either in person or on the telephone. Some passages are things he said directly to me after visiting other Reich medical facilities. Concentration camps, euthanasia centers, various clinics.” She carried the book part of the way to the stairs, then turned and tossed it to McConnell.

“You’re a doctor,” she said. “Read the Curriculum Vitae of one of your fellow physicians.”

When she had gone, McConnell opened the diary and began to read.

Rachel Jansen sat motionless in the wing chair in the anteroom of Major Schörner’s quarters. Schörner sat on the sofa opposite her, sipping from a glass of brandy.

“Why didn’t he kill me in the reprisal?” Rachel asked in a monotone.

Schörner held his glass up to a lamp and watched the light play through the amber liquid. “Sturm is just the slightest bit afraid of me,” he said. “And well he should be. I’d like to cut his throat with his own dagger. When I look at those bruises on your beautiful face . . . my blood burns. And I can tell by the way you sit and breathe that you are hurt in the side. Did that bastard Grot kick you?”

“This is madness,” Rachel said softly, the act of speech sending stabbing pains along her damaged ribs. “What if I am discovered here? Now? Tonight?”

A reckless smile played at the corners of Schörner’s handsome mouth. “That is the last thing that would happen tonight, Liebling . Brandt wants no conflict, nothing that might disturb his arrangements with Reichsführer Himmler. To Brandt, Sturm and I are merely a sideshow. Besides that” — his voice softened — “I had to see you. I had to know that the pig had not hurt you badly.”

Schörner leaned forward on the sofa. “Did he? If you are unable tonight . . . I will understand.”