The Traitor Blitz Read online

  My liver wasn't functioning properly, other vital organs weren't either—all because of the life I was leading. That was why I had my jackal. That was what I called my condition when it became acute, because then I had the distinct feeling that a jackal was circling around me, coming closer and closer until he was leaning over me, and I almost choked over the putrid stench of his breath.

  Attacks like these could last two days, but then I was back in circulation, more or less, and had to make up for lost time, full speed ahead—which, to my surprise, always turned out to be possible: something I was proud of. When I got going like that, I would work night and day and come up with more than any of our team of writers. If a time came when I couldn't, I'd change my way of life. Another one of my screwy ideas. I saw a doctor only when it was absolutely necessary, because I knew exactly what he'd say. If I went on living like this I wouldn't see forty. They'd been telling me that for four years now, every one of them, all very fine human beings and doctors. To be treated with respect.

  The publishing house and editorial offices of Blitz were in Frankfurt. You may want to know why they sent Bertie and me, their highest-paid employees, into this desolate area. There was a reason for it, of course, and you'll soon see why, when I get around to describing Blitz in greater detail. Anyway, here we were and had just met Fr&ulein Louise and hadn't the faintest idea of what lay ahead of us. She was still telling us about the boy.

  "He defended himself like a maniac," she continued. "Didn't want to move from the spot, was sure his father was still alive and would come to him. He fought with the soldiers," Fraulein Louise went on. "He kicked them, scratched them, bit them. He wasn't in his right mind at the time."

  "So what did they do with him?" I asked.

  I was sitting opposite Fr&ulein Louise, straddled back to front on a chair, my elbows on the backrest. Far away I could sense the jackal, but no sweat. My flask was in my hip pocket. I took good care of myself.

  "They were scared. They sent for an ambulance and a doctor. He gave the child an injection that calmed him. Then they were able to transport him." Strange, to find someone way up here in North Germany with a Czech accent.

  "So where did they take him?" I asked, putting out my Gauloise on a tin ashtray. I smoked only black French cigarettes. One of the pads I always carried with me was lying beside the ashtray. I could write shorthand fast and well. And my memory hadn't failed me yet. Quite a few pages were already filled because I'd seen so many interesting things since our arrival. I hadn't written down anything I'd heard. For that I had a cassette recorder, which I also took with me everywhere. It was standing on the desk. I always had a lot of cassettes with me and used the recorder whenever I was doing research. It had been on ever since we had met Fr&ulein Louise.

  "Where they took him? Well, here and there and finally to a clinic in Munich. In a state of shock. He was in the hospital six weeks, my poor litde boy, then they sent him here."

  "So he's been here five weeks?"

  "Yes. And hell be staying longer."

  "How much longer?"

  "As long as I can manage it. I don't want him sent to a home. We're still looking for his mother. She's supposed to be living somewhere in West Germany. He doesn't have anyone else. Since he's been here he's talked about his mother all the time. It's a wicked world we're living in, gentlemen, especially for the children. It's been like that ever since I started working with children, and it wasn't any better before. That's why I decided to become a social worker. It isn't the children's fault that the world is such a wicked place."

  "How long have you been a social worker?"

  "Since 1924."

  "What?"

  "Yes. That surprises you, doesn't it? Forty-four years. Nearly my whole life and always with children. I began working when I was eighteen. Those were bad times, too, right after the inflation. I worked in Vienna first. Twentieth district. What misery I People were starving, nobody had money. Nothing but filth and poverty. So much poverty! The first thing we did was establish a clinic for children. I went begging to the various agencies for money for my children. Ran my feet off. Things didn't get better. Then there was the World Depression in 1929. Things got even worse. That was the time when they—" She stopped abruptly.

  "When they what?"

  She didn't answer.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing," she said hastily. "So... after 1929, things got worse. There was unemployment. It looked as if half Austria was unemployed. Until Hider came. That's why he had it so easy. Because he promised work and bread."

  "Yes," I said. "And what did you do when Hitler came?"

  "Nothing changed for me. I went on working with my children, and anyway, the war came soon after that. And all through the war I looked after my children. When things got very bad, we were moved out into the country—of all places, to my native land! Not far from Reichenberg. January 1945. That's when we had to move. Two hundred and fifty children and only three of us. I had them through snow and ice, to Munich. We stopped in a camp outside the city because it was safer. I got all of them through, except three. They died of exposure. It was so cold." She was staring straight ahead, her face a mask of grief. "It was so terribly cold "

  Fraulein Gottschalk—"Call me Fraulein Louise," she had said when we had been introduced—was of medium height and gave the impression of being worn out from overwork. She was painfully thin. Her white hair had a silvery glint, and she wore it combed straight back with a knot at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were blue and their expression was unbelievably kind, which was the impression given by her whole face—delicate, narrow, pale, with wide, bloodless lips. She still had all her teeth, good strong teeth. She had on a gray skirt and an old brown cardigan over a white blouse, and she was wearing ankle boots to give support to her swollen legs. "It's not easy for me, all the walking I have to do. I've got water, you know, in my feet. Not

  that I'm complaining. IVe had to run all my life. They do all right by me, really, my feet do—"

  "And then?" I asked, putting out my cigarette and lighting the next one with my lighter, eighteen-carat gold, naturally. "Then the Americans came to Bavaria, didn't they?"

  Fraulein Louise was looking at me, but her gaze seemed to come from far away. "Yes. Friendly people. Good people. They gave me food and clothes for my children and coal for our barracks. The Russians were friendly, too," she added hastily. "Their tanks caught up with us on our flight, and they threw food down to us, and blankets. And they found some horse carts for me. If it hadn't been for the Russians, we'd never have made it to the friendly Amis. Funny, isn't it? War and death and destruction, and people were bad; but when things were worst of all, our enemies helped my children—the Russians, too, in spite of everything that had happened to them. Yes, yes—" She sighed. And the recorder was picking up every word.

  "Well, after that I cared for the children under the Amis, in Bavaria, until they divided everything up into zones, and there was the blockade, and so many people came over from the Russian Zone—children, too. And that was when they sent us up here."

  "In 1948?" I dropped my cigarette in my astonishment. "You mean to say you've been here twenty years?"

  "Twenty years. Yes, sir. A third of my life. It was a camp for young people, up to eighteen, just as it is today. Families couldn't always flee together, you know. There were children alone, parents alone. Hundreds of thousands came streaming in in those days. Millions I And so many young people. Oh, dear God, sometimes we didn't know which way to turn. After the uprising of June 1953, we never got any rest at all! We worked day and night. We were filled to the rafters, and it's a big camp. You've seen it. And I always had the children. We could fill a whole city with the children I've taken care of and protected since 1924."

  "And you're still doing it."

  "I'll do it until I die," said Fraulein Louise. "I don't care what children. I don't care what color they are or what their religion is or where they come from. And I don't care what g
overnment I work under. I'll work under any government that lets me look after my children." She smiled at me, a little uncertainly; her lips were trembling.

  Bertie let me do the talking. He was busy in his fashion. He

  had brought along two cameras, a Nikon-F and a Hasselblad— both with incredibly fast lenses. With them Bertie could shoot in a room without a flash. He took pictures of Fraulein Louise while I talked to her. Human interest. If anything was to come of the story, that's what we needed—human interest. And Fraulein Louise was giving us plenty.

  "But since they put up the Wall," I said, "things must have quieted down. Not many people can get past it."

  "Not from the Zone," said Fraulein Louise. "Before the Wall there were twenty-four camps for refugees in the Bundesre-publik. Now only a few are left. Friedland and Zirndorf, near Niirnberg—they're the famous ones. And this one here in Neurode, for young people and children. And we've become quite international! Didn't I say it was a wicked world? People are still afraid. Will there be war? Revolution? A dictatorship? Will we have to flee again? You've just seen it happen! Czechoslovakia! And before that—East Germany! And Greece." She laughed softly. "You won't believe this, but I had five little Vietnamese here six months ago. No, no... there can be no rest, there can be no peace, and I must go on looking after my children, the poor litde things. During the last months, of course, they've been mostly Czechs."

  "Children from your native land."

  "Yes, sir. They have translators here. You saw them. But you can always make yourself understood with children. And since I speak Czech, they let me have the Czech children. I take care of them, especially poor Karel."

  "He's your favorite?"

  "They're all my angels," said Fraulein Louise. "I have no favorites. But Karel is so helpless and still so shocked and afraid. Right now he needs special attention."

  Karel was in the next room; only a thin wall separated us from him. I had seen the boy; so had Bertie, when we had walked into Fraulein Louise's office. The door to the next room had been open. We could see that it was furnished like a living room, with a braided rug, a wardrobe, a bookshelf, a bed, a floor lamp, a radio on a bedside table, and on the wall six pictures painted by children. Fraulein Louise had said these were her rooms—this was where she lived.

  Karel had been sitting on a stool in the middle of the room when we entered, the brass trumpet on his knees. His good blue suit had been cleaned and pressed, his shoes were polished. He 30

  looked very small, sitting with his face to the wall, his back turned to us, a tragic sight in his motionless despair.

  "Walter!" said Bertie. "We've got something here." And he got his Nikon-F ready for action. Karel turned around when he heard us coming. He was very pale. Outside, children were playing in the mild sunshine. They were dancing to the music that was coming over the loudspeakers. The voice of a man was singing, "Such a day! Such a beautiful day as today should never end —"

  We walked up to Karel. Fraulein Louise had told us his name. He looked at us, but he didn't move. A squadron of jets flew low over the camp. The noise was horrendous. It made me nervous and I inhaled the smoke from my cigarette deep and fast. Starfighters were passing overhead, a formation every twenty minutes.

  Karel didn't show any reaction to the jets either. Not even his eyelids twitched. It was as if he had died sitting up.

  "Hello, Karel," I said.

  No response.

  "He doesn't understand much German," said Fraulein Louise, excusing the child, which was absurd and touching at the same time. She offered the boy a piece of chocolate, she spoke to him in Czech, he shook his head. "He doesn't want it." Fr&ulein Louise sighed. "And it's milk chocolate. With nuts. Sometimes he likes it. But he hadn't got over it yet. That's what I keep telling everybody when they say I shouldn't show any favoritism—he shouldn't be sitting here all day. But he wants to. He says here he isn't afraid."

  "Of what?"

  "That they'll start shooting again."

  "Who should start shooting again?"

  "I don't know. He's very confused. He's afraid they'll shoot at him the way they shot at his father. Here, he says, nothing can happen to him, so he's here most of the time. I work in the next room. I leave the door open and he's quiet. But of course he has to eat and sleep with the other children, in their barracks." She leaned over the boy. He looked up and gave her a wan smile. It was a dreadful smile, the saddest smile I have ever seen. Worse than the worst tears. Frfiulein Louise spoke Czech again. She pointed to us. Karel turned his head and looked at us. The smile died on his lips and he turned his back on us again.

  "I told him you gentlemen were from a big illustrated magazine," Fraulein Louise explained, "and that you're writing a

  story about the camp and taking pictures." And Bertie was doing just that, of Karel and his trumpet, from every possible angle. He managed to get in front of the boy, too. Bertie knew his job. Small children and little animals, naked girls and pictures of accidents, as gory as possible— that was what people wanted to see. It made them lascivious. It stirred them sexually. Sex appeal. Human appeal. The big shit—that was our profession!

  "It's a very important magazine, isn't it?" asked FrSulein Louise.

  "Yes," I said.

  "How big is it?" she wanted to know.

  "Circulation of one point nine million a week."

  Bertie was still taking pictures of Karel. He had stretched out on the floor and was focusing on the boy from below. Karel paid no attention to him. "According to reliable statistics," I went on, "every copy is read by at least five people, which gives us approximately nine million readers." I was reeling this off as usual, and that was when Fr&ulein Louise did it for the first time.

  She cocked her head sideways a litde, her eyes looked far away, and she said softly but clearly, as if what she was saying was not for our ears, "Come hither. I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication—' That's how it is, isn't it? What do you say?"

  She was looking across my shoulder, and now she seemed to be listening, her lips parted. I must admit it shook me! They were strange words to come from her lips and under the circumstances made no sense. Who had come into the room and was standing behind me? I turned quickly.

  Nobody had entered the room. Nobody was standing behind me.

  Fr&ulein Louise had used the first person plural, Ihr, as if addressing more than one person. It was grotesque. As a matter of fact, it was crazy! She was speaking to people I couldn't see! Nonsense—to people who weren't there! I looked at her again.

  She was still standing with her head cocked a little to one side as if listening, then she said sofdy, "They will quarrel with the Lamb, but you say the Lamb is invincible. You're quite sure of that?"

  "Who's quite sure of what?"

  Suddenly her eyes were clear again, seeing us as if she had just 32

  awakened from a deep sleep. "Quite sure of what?" she said slowly.

  "The Lamb."

  "What Lamb?"

  "That's what I'm asking you. You spoke about a Lamb, and about other things. You said—" But she had stepped up to me and now she interrupted me, her face red. "I didn't say anything!"

  "But you did I"

  "No!" she cried excitedly and at the same time—or so it seemed to me—embarrassed and frightened.

  "I heard you, too," said Bertie, still on the floor taking pictures. He said it smiling, amiable and guileless. He was so concentrated on Karel, he hadn't noticed the change that had come over Fr&ulein Louise and wasn't aware of the strangeness of what she had said.

  "You couldn't have heard anything!" cried Fraulein Louise. "Either of you! We only hear earthly voices. Now please come to the office with me. I don't want the boy to get excited. Before I show you the rest of the camp, I'll make us some coffee and tell you what the poor child ha
s experienced."

  She walked ahead of us, clumsy on her swollen legs. Bertie got up and we looked at each other across the benumbed boy. Bertie was smiling as he watched Fr&ulein Louise leave the room, and he tapped his forehead with his finger, and right then I had the strong feeling—it struck me like lightning—that things were not all that simple as far as Fraulein Gottschalk was concerned. It wasn't a clear-cut case of bats in the belfry. There was more to it, a lot more. I had the facts, which I could write in a way that suited my almighty paper, to thank it for my high-paying job, but I also had to give my instincts some of the credit. Because at that moment I felt clearly that I was on the track of something that would lead eventually to strange, and, in plain language, terrific revelations! At the same time I felt dizzy. My jackal was turning in, still far away but circling closer. I took my flask out of my pocket, unscrewed the top, took one drink of Chivas and a second, just to be on the safe side.

  "You're going to kill yourself with that stuff," said Bertie.

  "Sure, sure," I said, puffing away on my Gauloise. But the jackal was gone and I no longer felt sick and dizzy.

  "What's the matter, gentlemen?" said Frfiulein Louise. "Aren't you coming?"

  "Yes, yes, we're coming."

  Bertie followed her into her office, but I stayed behind for a moment, staring at the wardrobe to which Fr&ulein Louise had been talking as if more than one person had been standing in front of it. It was an ugly plywood wardrobe, not even varnished, a cheap piece of furniture. And I stood there staring at it like an idiot.