The Eye of the Abyss - [Franz Schmidt 01] Read online

  ‘I believe Herr Dietrich is satisfied to date.’

  The general-director smiled enigmatically. ‘Very good. All of that is interesting. Actually, I wished to speak about something else.’

  He smoothed the empty desk-top with his gold-ringed hand. Schmidt watched with a loyal sympathy. He knew Herr Wertheim saw himself as the guardian of their clients’ assets and secrets — and of the bank’s hallowed tradition. A terrific weight, especially these days.

  Herr Wertheim was considering how Schmidt would react to the new task which he was about to be assigned. Such a handsome, compact man, so respectful and serious. He thought: The shutters are always up — though, isn’t that part of our culture? Is it the right one, or the left? I must ask Fräulein Dressler.

  ‘Herr Schmidt, as you know the Prague branch is being reorganised. I would like you to go there for two weeks to keep an eye on this. Will you do that?’

  Schmidt was surprised. The Prague branch had its own competent auditor. ‘Of course, at your service Herr General-Director.’ He waited. This couldn’t be the full picture.

  ‘Fräulein Dressler,’ Herr Wertheim said quietly, ‘will accompany you to put in the head office reporting system.’

  The auditor blinked. A much stronger surge of surprise, and hope, went through him. That was what had been in the air in the anteroom!

  ‘She’ll need a passport. In today’s conditions, therein lies a complication. Schmidt, I trust your discretion completely. What I say next is strictly confidential ... Our dear fraulein had a Jewish mother.’ Eyes narrowed, the G-D watched Schmidt. His experienced scrutiny often learnt a lot from a person’s reactions, helped him decide the next move. He smiled. This auditor was a hard nut to crack.

  ‘I understand, Herr General-Director.’ Schmidt’s intelligence, hyper-acute in the G-D’s presence, was engaged in an inner monologue: ‘It’s a pretext, she’s not needed in Prague. I’m not needed there. He’s trying to get her out. Has Dietrich talked to him already? Or, has he realised he can’t continue to protect her?’ That she had initiated the proposal didn’t occur to him. Involuntarily, he leaned forward.

  This interested Herr Wertheim. ‘It’s not an easy time for travelling. The fraulein will need your protection. I put the preparation of her passport application into your hands. I’ll lodge it through a special channel. You’ll have access to her personal records, birth certificate.’ Ah, the birth certificate! ‘Please prepare a supporting letter from the bank.’ The gen-eral-director’s gaze left Schmidt’s face, and travelled down the room. The auditor followed it.

  Another new work of art hung on the wall. A huge painted eye, Prussian blue, set at the apex of a geometric pattern which depicted a kind of corridor. His single-eye vision had kept it from him. Also, he’d been concentrating on Herr Wertheim.

  Schmidt turned his own eye back; Wertheim’s face was bland.

  ‘It’s entitled The Eye! The G-D smiled. ’One finds oneself watching it.’ While Commerce and the Future might just scrape by, this work must be categorised as degenerate art. Schmidt waited. ‘It was in the Fuehrer’s exhibition of unsuitable art in Munich last year, much of which finished up with an art dealer in Switzerland.’ Schmidt remained silent. Why was Herr Wertheim telling him this? ‘My dear Schmidt, you should plan to depart the last week of November. Thank you. Always a pleasure.’

  As Schmidt went out he imagined the gaze of The Eye on his back. It was amazing! Such a picture in the bank — given their new direction. Conundrums were circling the good ship Wertheim like sharks. He remembered a recent Wagner assertion: ‘Just when old Wertheim thinks he has this tiger by the tail, it’ll have its teeth in his arse.’

  But perhaps something was going on in Herr Wertheim’s mind which was outranging them all. Or was there something in Wagner’s wild claims of insanity? One thing was clear: He was to play a part in getting Fräulein Dressler out! The weight of indecision — the pressure to act — had come off him.

  She looked up quickly at the sound of the door. He walked towards her, past the table of newspapers, black headlines blazing up. It seemed matters were in hand; no longer any need for him to warn her against Dietrich. Immediately, he doubted that. A vision came to him of the Nazi, restless, intrusive — back again - striding down the corridors; that man wouldn’t remain inactive until the last week in November. He must leave nothing to chance.

  She was smiling, the first real smile he’d seen from her. A light touch of relief was in the air. Close to her, he smelt a scent reminiscent of a flower he couldn’t identify. She sorted papers efficiently, stood up, handed him a folder. He knew it would be the passport forms.

  ‘Fräulein, could we meet this evening for a private talk?’

  She gave him a look. ‘Good Heavens, Herr Schmidt! You haven’t forgotten the bank’s concert’s tonight? The night of the year!’

  Schmidt was taken aback. Momentarily he had. ‘Of course. After that?’

  She was smiling broadly now. ‘It’ll be late — but, yes, if you wish.’

  He named a place, and felt the strangeness of doing this given his married state. He went out, wondering what Wagner would think of this. He’d not seen him for a week, but his friend wouldn’t miss the concert.

  He paced the corridors, locked in thought. ‘Doing the corridors’, Wertheim people called it.

  At 12.15, Herr Dietrich swept into Schmidt’s room, as though borne from Berlin by powerful winds. The visit had apparently given him a booster-injection of vitality, quite unneeded in Schmidt’s view. The Nazi had become a semi-permanent appendage to his desk: even when he wasn’t there Schmidt visualised him on its edge, leg swinging, hair gleaming, hard blue eyes probing, a cocktail of tobacco and face-scent in the air.

  ‘Well, Schmidt, there you are. The Party needed my services longer than anticipated. All in order here, I trust?’

  ‘Yes, Herr Director. This week’s report is on your desk.’

  ‘You can rely on me studying it. By the way, I presume our little arrangement’s in place?’

  ‘For the first of the month.’

  ‘Good. Including yourself?’

  ‘Herr Director, as I said ...’

  ‘A pity. However, I’ll send you to Berlin soon, to talk to the Party’s finance people. You will enjoy that. It will widen your horizons. The energy, the sense of purpose in Berlin, is boundless. You might bring some of it back here.’ He laughed softly.

  Schmidt nodded.

  ‘Your report on Fräulein Dressler?’

  The auditor blinked. No ‘By the way’ for this — just the question fired like a torpedo out of its tube. The Nazi’s eyes were drilling into him with a similar precision. He took a shallow breath. ‘I have to report there was no birth certificate on the Fräuleins file.’

  The Nazi’s leg ceased swinging. He held a cigarette in a hand which had frozen halfway to his lips. In an eye-blink, the big handsome face clouded with suspicion. He stared at the auditor, disbelievingly.

  Abruptly, the cigarette’s passage recommenced. ‘You see how it is, Schmidt? How cunning they are? What we’re up against even at this low level? Some enemy has stripped the file of the evidence. Never mind. I’ll obtain the certificate through a special channel. This virtually proves what I suspected.’

  Schmidt was silent. ‘Special channel’ — that phrase again. He, also, would have to rectify the deficiency. How much time did he have?

  ‘So, it’s all quiet my friend. When it’s like this I’m suspicious. The Party’s focused on the rebuilding of the Reich, the welfare of our legitimate people — on a wonderful future. It has little time to worry about its own interests. We have that heavy responsibility, you and I, Schmidt! Don’t relax your guard for a moment. Perhaps, even in Wertheim & Co, there’s a fifth column biding its time to strike a treacherous blow.’ He stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Don’t look surprised, Herr Auditor.’

  Schmidt was, genuinely.

  Grinning to himself, his manner suddenly a contradiction
to the dire warning, Dietrich quit the desk with his usual athleticism. ’Just remain vigilant!’

  Schmidt listened to the self-important footsteps depart. That slight unevenness of impact again. Did the man’s left hand know what the right was up to? Did he really believe the cant about the fifth column? Why was he allowing a trace of irony about Nazi dogma to show? Schmidt shook his head. He felt in need of a short recovery period.

  Dietrich’s absence and the missing birth certificate had bought a little time. Presumably, Herr Wertheim believed he could quarantine himself and his auditor from the repercussions that would follow her escape — if that was intended. He was ninety-nine per cent certain it was. Yet, if the G-D had misjudged the situation, the outcome for Franz Schmidt — and his family — could be disastrous. It chilled his heart. He opened the file which she’d handed him. Getting the scheme into play under the eyes of Dietrich was going to be not only challenging but dangerous. That was a one hundred per cent certainty.

  ~ * ~

  9

  S

  ENIOR DETECTIVE DRESSLER was out on a case — his own. With his rolling, nearly silent walk, he entered a maze of eighteenth-century streets in the city’s inner eastern district. Fifteen years he’d pounded this beat, patrolled it as a detective for the past ten. Efficiently he observed black beards, black clothing, intense confidential conversations, figures floating in the opaque afternoon. He smelled soup; absorbed the foreignness and watchfulness. Light cords were being pulled; the lights barely illuminated the brandy-coloured interiors.

  He was a human almanac on local petty crime: safe-breakers, burglars, pickpockets. He knew the faces of many of the small-traders who watched his giant figure pass by, some of their names. They knew him, and every public official who went that way. Behind his back, their children imitated his walk. His wife’s people, working, and watching. For many years, he’d been a near insider; involved in family gatherings. In the early ‘thirties, her family had left, scattering across Europe like chaff in a wind.

  He proceeded under an archway into a narrow defile, dank as a sewer. He couldn’t help wheezing. His damned damaged lungs. He wondered if the sunlight ever got down here even in summer. The more he thought about it the less confidence he had in Herr Wertheim. Now, at this late hour, he was consumed by the need to find an alternative plan. In the war he’d never panicked; he’d studied the terrain behind him as painstakingly as that in front, plotting a line of withdrawal. Several times it had saved him, and his men. He peered at the houses, looking for a number.

  They were waiting for him. He’d telephoned a man, and it’d been arranged. Perspiring, breathless in a phone booth, he’d had to bear down with all his desperation to overcome the man’s reluctance.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said, as though she was by his side. He turned, scrutinised the street, and entered a building. He climbed a stone stairway to the third floor, his body brushing the walls. What a hole! The Propaganda Ministry was cunning, with its films of rats swarming in narrow spaces. The room smelt rotten with damp. The three men waiting for him had kept their overcoats and hats on. The smell of body odour was strong; their brows sparkled with beads of sweat.

  Dressler felt pity. He nodded and took the vacant chair facing them and said in his dolorous voice, ‘I’m sorry to bring you here. Thank you for agreeing to see me. I have a problem. I understand it has been explained.’

  Collectively, they studied this minor official of the Third Reich who’d stepped from one existence into another. They understood his deadly dilemma. He’d called in several favours to be here. They knew all of this. Their fear and uncertainty were palpable. It would be up to Rubinstein, the man in the centre, who stared at the detective, squinting — as though he was trying to see into his soul. Behind his gold-rimmed spectacles Rubinstein’s face was not always this serious; he was well known for his mordant wit. At that moment, in his own mind, he was playing the Devil’s Advocate. Or was it Russian roulette? He released one of his tight smiles. He’d been a judge until 1933.

  The policeman’s credentials were good. An honest, reasonable, humane man. Fifteen years — they’d no cause for complaint of him. However, was that record about to be debased? For example, had he done a deal with his masters to get his girl out? Was their network the quid pro quo?

  Rubinstein said, ’What is it, specifically, that you wish from us?’

  Dressler blinked quickly at the end of the delicately balanced silence. ‘Mein Herr, my daughter has a plan to leave which, if it eventuates, should be safe. I fear it may not eventuate. If it does not, time will be a crucial factor. I wish to find another way. Some Jewish people are getting out.’ He meshed his giant fingers together. ‘I request your assistance.’

  He took a deep breath, breathed in their fear, and let it go in a sigh. All he could do was be himself. Why should they help? The risks were too great.

  Rubinstein absorbed the man’s honesty, and pain, his constrained breathing. His own breathing seemed quick and refined in comparison. He said, ’Thirty per cent of our people in this city have left Germany. Most under conditions which were difficult, though far easier than today.’ He shrugged. ‘Last month, the Government demanded the surrender of all Jewish passports. Two ways exist, which might be acceptable to you in terms of the risk. We can forget the others. Firstly, certain Nazi officials are prepared to arrange exit papers for a price. A very high price. Very few can pay it.’ He looked at Dressler.

  ‘Secondly, false papers can be prepared — these are expensive — but the expense is more manageable. However, the danger is much greater. Day by day, the authorities become more vigilant. To be detected is ... one chance in five.’

  The rickety chair had creaked under Dressler’s weight, though he had not moved his body.

  ‘Would you arrange an introduction? For the real papers.’

  Rubinstein nodded slowly. ‘Nothing is safe or sure in these dealings. I would recommend them only as a last resort.’

  Back outside, Herr Dressler surveyed the gloom. The slitlike street had two low-powered lights at either end; between was a black gulch. Fortunately, the Gestapo were short-handed in this city. He knew their exact number. Informers were the worry.

  He began to retrace his steps, hands plunged into his pockets. Tears were in his eyes, he realised. He felt gratitude towards these men, admiration. They were traders used to sizing up persons, taking risks; nonetheless, this was a deadly game. Today, whom could anyone trust? He couldn’t trust his colleagues, they observed each other with embarrassment. The orders coming down from Himmler’s office were accepted with feigned indifference.

  He recalled an incident. Two years ago after a Party rally, SA thugs had suddenly identified a dark man, chased and cornered him; kicked him to a bloody pulp. A citizen had remonstrated. Amazed at this temerity, the Nazis had turned on him, one had speared him in the face with the eagle-head of his flagstaff. The man had staggered back, his eye hanging on his cheekbone. Like a flock of pigeons taking off, the crowd had scattered. Standing with uniformed colleagues, Dressler had witnessed it. Almost in a drill movement, they’d looked away. He’d felt sick to his stomach, dishonoured, and had stepped forward to summon medical assistance. The dark man was gurgling in his death throes. The other had gone off to hospital following his futile act belonging to another age, or the Great War. Dressler had understood that kind of heroic, reflex act; that it owed little to logic, or the way the world was. It was just the way certain men were. Like these he’d just met.

  He let it go, and padded on through the darkness. Shadowy human forms slipped past him in the murk. Optical illusions? His brain couldn’t always quite cope. A tiny splinter of steel was still lodged there. Blinding headaches came frequently, the triggers of his war memories.

  ‘God help us,’ he whispered. He turned a corner and was gazing at the city centre’s electric lights.

  Three pm: coming into Dresden. Juddering over junctions of points, each increasingly complex, Helga watched th
e familiar suburbanscape rolling out through the window: the minutiae of domestic and commercial life, unaffected by the structures of the Third Reich. Trudi, absorbed in endless plaiting of her doll’s blonde locks, kept her tiny face as serious as her father’s so often was.

  Helga had been going over and over the same questions. The Order was at the heart of his ‘other world’. Throughout their marriage it had aroused in her various emotions: curiosity, exasperation ... She’d resented the interminable hours of research at the Municipal Library special reading room. Following in his father’s footsteps. And, his unwillingness to discuss it. As far as she knew he hadn’t discussed it with a single soul; he even kept himself anonymous from its mysterious headquarters in Vienna. She couldn’t understand these things.

  In the early days, half teasingly, she’d asked him what part of the cosmos he went away to. Clandestinely, she’d dipped into certain books, searching for a point of entry. She’d entered a labyrinth. She’d roamed blindly, knowing he was mining at much deeper levels.