A Song Of Shadows Part 11

'The first intake arrived in the spring of 1944: seventeen individuals, most of them Jews, including three children. They came from Belsen and Auschwitz, and perhaps could not quite believe what was happening to them. They were given the opportunity to shower, offered clean clothes and decent food. They found one couple, the Dreschers from near Koblenz, already in residence. They were not Jews, they said, but had been incarcerated for sheltering them. They claimed to have been at Lubsko for a month, and had helped to get the camp fit and ready for the first intake. They had been treated well, but before they could say any more, Lothar Probst and his wife arrived to explain the arrangements to the new arrivals. It was very simple: they could choose to return to their original camps, where they would immediately be executed, or they could find a way to pay for the relative privileges and comforts that Lubsko offered. They would be given one week to decide.

'By this time, of course, there were whisperings, both among the Germans and the prisoners, that the war could not last forever, and it was only a matter of time before the Allies invaded. It was a question of surviving to see the end, and Probst and his wife made it clear to the prisoners that they, too, desired an easy life, and Lubsko could only continue to exist if it produced wealth. Also, who would choose to go back to the gas chambers and the death pits if there was another option? The RSHA researchers had done their job well: all those who had been picked gave up a.s.sets of some type. This information was sent back to Amter II-L, and trusted officers were sent to secure the items in question.

'But this was a kind of blackmail, so a few days later Probst would come back to the prisoners again, seeking further a.s.sets. Those who could not pay were publicly threatened with being returned to their camps, but those who could pay often stepped up and offered to save not just themselves, but the others too, for the n.a.z.is understood that goodness can be exploited just as much as evil. And even if the prisoners at Lubsko quickly began to realize that they were the victims of a terrible duplicity, they had no choice but to go along with it. To borrow a gambling a.n.a.logy, if they folded now, they lost everything.

'About three weeks after the first intake arrived, they were all murdered. The adults were shot in the woods and buried in a ma.s.s grave. The children were separated from them, taken to the infirmary by Frau Probst, and killed by lethal injection. Only the Dreschers were spared, because they were part of the deception, and were in reality a pair of loyal party members, the Kuesters. They were the Judas goats, leading the cattle to the slaughter.

'One week later, the next intake arrived, and the Dreschers were now from Zwickau instead, for a pair of Jews from Koblenz were among the new prisoners. And so it went on Bruno Perlman's family being among the final prisoner groups, incidentally until it became clear that the Allies would soon be at the gates, at which point Probst and his wife died in what appears to have been a murder-suicide pact, after which some of the guards must have turned on one another, possibly over the division of spoils. It's clear from surviving doc.u.mentation that concerns were being raised in Berlin about possible inconsistencies in the level of a.s.sets being reported to the RSHA from Lubsko. Some skimming was probably to be expected, but it seems likely that the Probsts were engaged in holding back information about the location of significant quant.i.ties of hidden wealth. A warrant had already been issued for their arrest in the days before the camp was ordered to be liquidated, and it may be that the killing of guards by their comrades was not unconnected with this fact. Had the Reich not collapsed, there's a good chance that the Probsts could have found themselves facing the same fate as their prisoners. Instead, with the Russians advancing from the east, and the British and Americans from the west, the Probsts chose death.

'The Americans found all of the bodies when they arrived the Dreschers and the Probsts among them along with one survivor, a Jewish woman named Isha Gorski, who escaped from the camp and hid in the last death pit when the shooting began. It was from her that we learned of Lubsko's existence. The rest is based on research, and admittedly some speculation, especially concerning those final days. I have to confess, though, that I am no expert, and I had to make some calls to find out what I've told you. Such information I don't keep at my fingertips.'

'And what happened to Isha Gorski?' Bloom asked.

'I don't know. I didn't ask. If she is still alive, then she is a very old woman by now.'

'The question remains,' said Parker. 'What was Bruno Perlman doing up here in the first place?'

'You can say, with some a.s.surance, that it will be linked either to Lubsko or to neo-n.a.z.ism,' said Epstein. 'From what I hear, he had little interest in anything else.'

'Was he-?' Bloom started to ask, then tried to find another way to phrase the question before deciding to follow her original path. 'Was he suicidal?'

'The Jewish view on suicide is very severe,' said Epstein. 'It's a serious sin. That's not to say that Jews do not commit suicide, but Perlman, with his newfound religious fervor, would not have been unaware of the consequences of it for his soul. But who is to say what goes through a man's mind at such moments? Not the torments of the next life, I think, but an end to the pain of this one, and Bruno Perlman was, I believe, a man in a great deal of pain.'

It was time for Epstein and Liat to leave if they were to make their flight to New York. Epstein fell back as they walked to his car, and Parker joined him.

'You are recovering,' said Epstein. It came out as a statement not a question.

'I hope so,' Parker replied.

'No, I can see it in you.'

'I think that's partly thanks to you.'

'Why would you say that?'

'The Brook House Clinic. I noticed that two members of its board share your surname.'

'Oh, that,' said Epstein, as though it were nothing, when Parker's time and treatment there had made months of difference to his progress. 'Distant relatives. It's a commandment: every Jew has to have a doctor in the family. It was on the third tablet that Moses couldn't carry down from the mountain, then left up there when he realized his people would have enough trouble keeping up with the ten commandments he already had.'

'Nevertheless, I'm grateful.'

'You know, you never cease to surprise me. I think you may outlive us all. Liat, she worries for you. I think that, if you were a Jew, she might even consider marrying you, if only to keep an eye on you. Have you ever considered converting?'

'You're kidding.'

'A little, yes. But she does care about you, as do I. Get well. Return to doing what you do best. Perhaps investigating Bruno Perlman may be a step on the way.'

They reached the car. Epstein hugged Parker again, and whispered, 'Don't leave Perlman in that place for much longer. Make some calls. Let him be buried so that his soul can rest at last.'

'I'll try.'

'Thank you.'

Liat opened the door for Epstein, and when he was safely inside she returned to Parker. She mouthed the words clearly so that he could understand her.

Earlier you signed 'Thank you.'

'Yes.'

For what?

'For everything.'

For sleeping with you?

'I didn't want you to think I was ungrateful.'

She smiled.

'And for watching over me in the hospital.'

The smile faded, to be replaced something unknowable.

You died.

'I know.'

So I was your shomeret, for a time. I don't want to do it again.

'I'll try my best to make sure you don't have to.'

This time, it was Liat who signed 'Thank you.' She kissed him once more before leaving, this time brushing the corner of his lips with her own.

Bloom and Parker watched them go. She considered asking Parker about Liat, then thought better of it. Some things, she knew, should remain unexplored and unremarked.

21.

The next day, Parker arrived in Bangor more than an hour before he was due to meet Rachel and Sam, and just in time to pick up a message from Rachel to say that they had been late in leaving Vermont, and wouldn't get to town until early afternoon, which left him with even more time to kill. He was a little relieved. The headache from two nights before when he'd woken to find himself on the rug by his bed, a pillow beneath his head lingered as a dull throb, and he'd been nauseous again on the drive to Bangor. He had no idea how he had come to be lying on his floor, and retained only a vague memory of a dream in which his dead child whispered words of comfort to him. He still wasn't sure how he'd managed to spend all that time with Epstein and Liat the day before without vomiting, which might have been taken amiss. Viewing Bruno Perlman's body and listening to the story of the camp at Lubsko hadn't helped.

He parked in the lot by the Bangor Public Library, picked up some books for Sam at the Briar Patch on Central he was becoming something of an expert on books for younger readers and then, on the off chance that he might be free, called Gordon Walsh. He figured that, if things worked out, he might be able to do everyone a favor, Perlman included, and scratch the itch that had been bothering him ever since he had first spoken with Bloom about the body.

The MSP investigator picked up on the second ring.

'Long time,' were Walsh's first words, after Parker had identified himself.

'I got the flowers you sent,' said Parker.

'I didn't send any flowers.'

'I know.'

'I did come to visit you in hospital, but you were sleeping.'

'So you just stood there and looked at me? You'll forgive me if that makes me uneasy.'

'I didn't touch you under the sheet, if that's what you're asking. Where are you?'

'Bangor.'

'And you just figured I'd be in Bangor too. Sorry if that makes me uneasy.'

'Oran Wilde,' said Parker.

Although the state police's Major Crimes Unit North operated out of Augusta, Bangor was the de facto forward base for the Wilde case. While now based in Gray, which put him in the south of the state, Walsh was one of the MSP's senior investigators. Leaving him out of the Wilde case would be like leaving Santa Claus out of Christmas.

'Right. Me and just about every other cop in the state who can string two words together and walk in a straight line. I'll see you at Java Joe's. Order me a java mocha.'

Walsh arrived about two minutes after Parker, just as Parker was putting the coffees on the table. Walsh took a sip of his beverage through the plastic lid, and scowled.

'This isn't a mocha,' he said. 'This is just regular coffee.'

'I was too embarra.s.sed to ask for a java mocha,' said Parker, 'and I didn't think they'd believe me if I told them it was for someone else. They'd suspect I was trying to hide something. Anyway, that's probably better for you.'

'At least you added milk.'

'Skim.'

'Jesus, I already got one mother. And a wife.'

Walsh removed the lid, went back to the counter, added half-and-half to his coffee, then sprinkled chocolate on the top. He tasted the result, looked a little happier, and came back to the table.

'That's the most disgusting thing I've seen in a while,' said Parker.

'Well, that's because you were out of circulation. You look okay for someone who's been dead, by the way. Not great, but okay. For anyone who doesn't like you, it must be a source of great frustration that you seem to be immortal. You die, but you don't stay that way.'

'You want to know what's on the other side?'

Walsh eyed the detective carefully, as if gauging the seriousness of the question.

'Is it seventy-two virgins, like the Muslims believe?'

'That's the good news. The bad news is that they're all guys. It's like being at a boarding school.'

'I knew there had to be a catch.'

Walsh tasted his coffee again, and discovered more cause for dissatisfaction. He returned to the dispensers and added enough regular sugar to kill a diabetic at ten paces. At last he was content.

'Not even sweetener this time?' Parker said, when he resumed his seat.

'That stuff'll kill you. It's not natural.'

Walsh sat back and scratched his chest. The movement exposed the dried sweat stains under his arms. He was on at least his second day with that shirt, Parker guessed, and although he hadn't shaved, he had razor burns on his neck, and the dark blotches beneath his eyes made him look as though he'd been in a fight, and lost.

'I hear you're up in Boreas,' he said.

'That's right.'

'The h.e.l.l are you doing there?'

'Recuperating. Taking the sea air.'

'It's full of Germans.'

'You don't like Germans?'

'My grandfather fought in World War II. Took a bullet in the head at Arnhem.'

'Yeah? I didn't know that.'

'It didn't kill him. Didn't even slow him down, as far as I could tell. He lived to be eighty. My grandmother used to say it was because the bullet didn't encounter any resistance on the way through. But he used to talk about some of those people up in Boreas, the ones who came over from Europe in the fifties, when we let in just about anyone who claimed to be in danger of persecution from the Communists. My grandfather believed there was a pretty good chance that somewhere in Boreas was a German who, if he didn't fire the bullet that hit him, probably knew the guy that did.'

'If it's any consolation, I haven't seen a single swastika since I arrived.'

'That's because they keep them in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and only dust them off for Hitler's birthday.'

'I'll bear it in mind.'

'On that subject, how long are you planning to stay in Boreas?'

'I haven't decided.'

'You keeping the place in Scarborough?'

'So far.'

'I saw it. They did a fine job of shooting it up.'

'They did a fine job of shooting me up as well.'

'Like I said earlier, that depends on the degree of affection in which you're held.' He twisted his cup. 'You planning on heading back south when you're fit and well?'

'Again, I haven't decided. Probably. I don't know about the house, though.'