A Quiet Flame

“This is my wife, Pilar, and my daughter, Mercedes,” said Kammler.

“Welcome to Wiederhold,” said Frau Kammler.

She was tall and thin and elegant, with perfect semicircular eyebrows that looked like they’d been drawn by Giotto, and lots of wavy fair hair either side of her face, which lent her a spaniel look. She belonged in the Cologne Prize wi

All of us did our best to be civilized and polite. Even A

“What are you doing here?” he asked when he saw me.

“Having di

Skorzeny draped a big arm around my shoulder. It felt as heavy as an iron bar. “This fellow is all right, Hans,” he told Kammler. “He’s my confidant. He’s going to help me to make sure those greaseballs never get their hands on the Reichsbank’s money.”

A

“How’s the hand, Otto?” I asked him, anxious to change the subject.

Skorzeny inspected his big mitt. It was covered in some livid-looking scars from when he had punched King George’s picture. It was clear he had forgotten how the scars had come to be there at all. “My hand? Yes. I remember now. How’s your ingrown toenail, or whatever it was?”

“He’s fine,” said A

“Who are you?” he asked her.

“His nurse. Only somehow he manages to look after himself very well without me. I wonder why I came at all.”

“Have you known each other for long?” asked Frau Kammler.

“They’re engaged to be married,” said Heinrich Grund.

“Really?” said Frau Kammler.

“It’s for his own good,” said A

“Do you have any friends as good-looking as you?” Skorzeny asked her.

“No. But you seem to have plenty of friends of your own.”

Skorzeny looked at me, then at Kammler and Grund. “You’re right,” he said. “My old comrades.”

A

“But I need a good woman,” he complained.

“What about Evita?” I asked. “How’s it coming along with her?” Skorzeny pulled a face. “Not a chance. Bitch.”

“Otto, please,” said Frau Kammler. “There are children present.”

Skorzeny looked at Mercedes and gri

“Thank you, Otto,” said Mercedes. “At least there’s someone here who’s prepared to treat me like a grown-up. Anyway, he’s right, Mommy. Eva Peron is a bitch.”

“That will do, Mercedes.” Her mother lit a cigarette in a holder the length of a blowpipe. Scolding Skorzeny gently, she took him over to the most comfortable-looking sofa and sat down with him. Evidently, she had experience of his behavior, because a minute later the hero of the Gran Sasso was asleep and snoring loudly.

We dined without him.

As promised, the di

“Tell your chef that I’m in love with him,” she said, full of charm now.

Kammler took his wife’s hand. “And I am in love with my wife,” he said, bringing the long, slender hand to his lips.

She smiled back at him and took his hand back to her mouth, then nuzzled it tenderly, like a favorite pet.

“Tell me, A

“No. I can’t say I ever did.” A

“I can’t tell you how happy this woman makes me,” said Kammler. “I think that I would die if she left me. Really I would. I’d just die without her.”

“So, A

“That all depends,” she said, treating me to one of her most saccharine smiles.

“On what?” asked Grund.

“He has a small quest to perform for me first.”

“So he’s a true knight,” said Mercedes. “How romantic. Just like Parsifal.”

“Actually, he’s more like Don Quixote,” said A

Grund laughed. “I like her, Bernie,” he said. “I like her a lot. But she’s much too clever for you.”

“I hope not, Heinrich.”

“And what is this quest?” asked Mercedes.

“I want him to slay a dragon for me,” said A

When di

There’s nothing like staring at a night sky to make you feel a long way from home. Especially when that sky is in South America and home is in Germany. The sky above the Sierra was bigger than any I’d ever seen, which made me feel smaller than the smallest point of silvery light on that great black vault. Perhaps that was why it was there. To make us feel small. To stop us from thinking that any of us is at all important enough to be a member of a master race and nonsense like that.

After a moment, I heard a match scrape and, looking around, I saw Heinrich Grund lighting a cigarette. He stared up the heavens, took a deep drag on the cigarette, and said, “You’re a lucky fellow, Bernie. She’s really very lovely. And a bit of a handful, I imagine.”

“Yes, she is.”

“Do you ever think of that kid in Berlin? The crippled one who got herself murdered back in ’thirty-two? Anita Schwarz, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“And you remember the arguments we used to have? About her. Me saying it was all for the best that people like her died and you saying that mercy killing was wrong.” He shrugged. “Something like that, anyway. The fact is, Bernie, I really had no idea what I was talking about. No idea at all. It’s one thing saying it. But it’s quite another doing it.” He was silent for a while. Then he asked, “Do you think there’s a God, Bernie?”

“No. How could there be? If there was, you wouldn’t be here now. Neither of us would.”

Grund nodded. “I was glad when we lost the war,” he said. “I expect that surprises you. But I was glad it was all over. The killing, I mean. And when we came here, it seemed like a fresh start.” He shook his head sadly as if weighed down by something monumentally heavy. “Only it wasn’t.”

When he had been silent for almost a minute, I said, “Do you want to talk about it, Heinrich?”

He let out an unsteady, tremulous sort of breath and shook his head. “Words don’t help. They only seem to make it worse. For me, at any rate. I don’t have Kammler’s strength. His sense of absolute certainty.”