Fatherland

Jaeger’s right hand flashed across from the steering wheel and grabbed the gun barrel, twisting it up and away, but March’s fingers were caught around the trigger and squeezed it.

The explosion in the enclosed space tore their eardrums. The car swerved across the Autobahn and up on to the grass strip separating the two carriageways and they were bouncing along the rough track. For an instant, March thought he had been hit, then he thought that Jaeger had been hit. But Jaeger had both hands on the wheel and was fighting to control the Mercedes and March still had the gun. Cold air was rushing into the car through a jagged hole in the roof.

Jaeger was laughing like a madman and saying something but March was still deaf from the shot. The car skidded off the grass and rejoined the Autobahn.

IN the shock of the blast, March had been thrown against his shattered hand and had almost blacked-out, but the stream of freezing air pummelled him back into consciousness. He had a frantic desire to finish his story -1 only knew for certain you’d betrayed me when Krebs showed me the wire-tap: I knew because you were the only person I’d told about the telephone kiosk in Billow Strasse, how Stuckart called the girl — but the wind whipped away his words. In any case, what did it matter?

In all this, the irony was Nightingale. The American had been an honest man; his closest friend, the traitor.

Jaeger was still gri

JUST after five they pulled off the autobahn into an all-night filling station. Jaeger stayed in the car and told the attendant through the open window to fill the tank. March kept the Luger pressed to Jaeger’s ribs, but the fight seemed to have gone out of him. He had dwindled. He was just a sack of flesh in a uniform.

The young man who operated the pumps looked at the hole in the roof and looked at them — two SS-Sturmba

Through the line of trees separating the service area from the autobahn, March could see the occasional passing headlight. But of the cavalcade he knew was following them: no sign. He guessed they must have halted a kilometre back, to wait and see what he pla

WHEN they were back on the road, Jaeger said: “I never meant any harm to come to you, Zavi.”

March, who had been thinking of Charlie, grunted.

“Globocnik is a police general, for God’s sake. If he tells you: ‘Jaeger! Look the other way!’ — you look the other way, right? I mean, that’s the law, isn’t it? We’re policemen. We have to obey the law!”

Jaeger took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at March, who said nothing. He returned his attention to the Autobahn.

Then, when he ordered me to tell him what you’d found out — what was I supposed to do?”

“You could have warned me.”

“Yes? And what would you have done? I know you: you’d have carried on anyway. And where would that have left me — me, and Ha

They were driving towards the dawn. Over the low wooded hills ahead of them was a pale glow, as if a distant city was on fire.

“Now I suppose they’ll kill me, for allowing you to pull the gun on me. They’ll say I let you do it. They’ll shoot me. Jesus, it’s a joke, isn’t it?” He looked at March with wet eyes. “It’s a joke!”

“It’s a joke,” said March.

IT was light by the time they crossed the Oder. The grey river stretched either side of the high steel bridge. A pair of barges crossed in the centre of the slow-moving water, and hooted a loud good morning to one another.

The Oder: Germany’s natural frontier with Poland. Except there was no longer any frontier; there was no Poland.

March stared straight ahead. This was the road down which the Wehrmacht’s Tenth Army had rolled in September 1939. In his mind, he saw again the old newsreels: the horse-drawn artillery, the Panzers, the marching troops …Victory had seemed so easy. How they had cheered!

There was an exit sign to Gleiwitz, the town where the war had started.

Jaeger was moaning. “I’m shattered, Zavi. I can’t drive much longer.”

March said, “Not far now.”

HE thought of Globus. “There’s nothing there any more, not even a brick. Nobody will ever believe it. And shall I tell you something? Part of you can’t believe it either.” That had been his worst moment, because it was true.

A TOTENBURG — a Citadel of the Dead — stood on a bare hilltop not far from the road: four granite towers, fifty metres high, set in a square, enclosing a bronze obelisk. For a moment as they passed, the weak sun glinted on the metal, like a reflecting mirror. There were dozens of such tumuli between here and the Urals — imperishable memorials to the Germans who had died — were dying, would die — for the conquest of the East. Beyond Silesia, across the Steppes, the Autobahnen were built on ridges to keep them clear of the winter’s snows — deserted highways ceaselessly swept by the wind…

THEY drove for another twenty kilometres, past the belching factory chimneys of Kattowitz, and then March told Jaeger to leave the Autobahn.

HE can see her in his mind.

She is checking out of the hotel. She says to the receptionist: “You’re sure there’ve been no messages?” The receptionist smiles. “None, Fraulein.” She has asked a dozen times. A porter offers to help her with her luggage, but she refuses. She sits in the car overlooking the river, reading again the letter she found hidden in her case. “Here is the key to the vault, my darling. Make sure she sees the light one day…” A minute passes. Another. Another. She keeps looking north, towards the direction from which he should come.

At last she checks her watch. Then she nods slowly, switches on the engine and turns right into the quiet road.

Now they were passing through industrialised countryside: brown fields bordered by straggling hedgerows; whitish grass; black slopes of coal waste; the wooden towers of old mineshafts with ghostly spi

“What a shit-hole” said Jaeger. “What happens here?”

The road ran beside a railway track, then crossed a river. Rafts of rubbery scum drifted along the banks. They were directly downwind of Kattowitz. The air stank of chemicals and coaldust. The sky here really was a sulphur-yellow, the sun an orange disc in the smog.

They dipped, went through a blackened railway bridge, then over a rail crossing. Close, now …March tried to remember Luther’s crude sketch map.

They reached a junction. He hesitated.

Turn right.”

Past corrugated iron sheds, scraps of trees, rattling over more steel tracks…

He recognised a disused rail line. “Stop!”

Jaeger braked.

This is it. You can turn off the engine.”

Such silence. Not even a birdcall.

Jaeger looked around with distaste at the narrow road, the barren fields, the distant trees. A wasteland. “But we’re in the middle of nowhere!”

“What time is it?”

“Just after nine.”

Turn on the radio.”

“What is this? You want a little music? The Merry Widow?”

“Just turn it on.”

“Which cha

The cha

Jaeger pressed a switch, turned a dial. A noise like an ocean breaking on a rocky shore. As he sca

Take out your handcuffs, Max. That’s it. Give me the key. Now attach yourself to the wheel. I’m sorry, Max.”

“Oh, Zavi…”

“Here he comes!” shouted the commentator. “I can see him! Here he comes!”