The Black Life Page 15

  ‘Is this really going to work?’ Zvi asked, as we crouched beside the wire fence after lights out.

  ‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘And think how easy it’ll be compared with SK work.’

  He nodded. We had left Shlomo behind in case his stamina ran out. After the sentries had crossed, we started to clamber over the fence. The Nazis had used the place for some nefarious purpose, so most of the strands were barbed. Some, however, had been replaced by ordinary wire and we had taken note of the locations on our daily exercise walks. Outside, we started to run. The nearest village was five kilometres away and I wasn’t sure how long we would need.

  We stopped to rest before the first houses. There were fewer lights than in the camp, which pleased me – good for what we were about to do and evidence that the Germans had limited electricity.

  ‘Think of Knaus,’ I whispered.

  Zvi’s expression changed to that of a savage. I imagine mine was similar – worse, probably. We crept up the path to the first building. The door was flimsy, no more than a row of planks held together by rusty nails.

  ‘I’m going to break it down,’ I said, lowering my shoulder.

  The barrier caved in. I didn’t even notice the impact, so hard had I become in body as well as spirit.

  ‘What’s going on?’ a middle-aged man said, rising unsteadily from a chair. He sat down immediately when Zvi put a sharpened table knife to his throat. The moon was low, casting its light through the windows.

  I leaned over him. ‘We are Jews,’ I said, grinning to display my broken, discoloured teeth. ‘We make a deal with you. In return for your life, we take everything worth carrying.’

  There was a muffled squeal and then I smelled urine on his trousers.

  ‘Anyone else here?’

  ‘My wife … my daughter … please …’

  I went to get them. Both were asleep in a double bed and woke in terror. I had a fork against one throat and a knife against the other. When they got up, I saw that the girl – seventeen or so – was pretty, though very thin. I pushed them into the front room.

  The man groaned and repeated, ‘Please,’ over and over. He glanced at his daughter and I understood.

  ‘Don’t worry, we don’t rape sub-humans,’ I said. I can’t tell you how much pleasure that gave me. Of course, it made them even more frightened. I turned to the woman, whose pouched cheeks were incongruous above her thin frame. ‘Bring everything of value that you have – food, drink, jewellery, clothes.’ I caught her gaze. ‘We will search afterwards. Believe me, we learned all there is to know about hiding places in the Lager. For every item we find, your man loses an ear, an eye … Then we start on your daughter. No noise!’

  She scurried around, opening drawers and emptying the contents on to the floor, then bringing out food – ham, cheese, bread, preserved fruit and vegetables. Then she went into the bedroom. I watched as she pushed the bed aside and took up a piece of floorboard. She sobbed as she handed me a box. In it were gold coins, two watches and her jewellery – none of it worth much, but it would serve our purpose. There were also three medals, one of them an Iron Cross. While she took clothes from the chest and wardrobe, I went back to the seated man.

  ‘How did you get this?’ I said, holding up the cross.

  ‘I gave the fatherland part of me,’ he said, picking up the empty left leg of his damp trousers. ‘At Stalingrad.’

  We had heard about the Germans’ crushing defeat from Soviet prisoners, but all I could think of was my brother Isaak, dragged away to be killed because of his missing limb.

  ‘What did you do?’ Zvi asked.

  ‘Saved two officers’ lives.’

  ‘Fool.’

  He nodded. ‘I wouldn’t do it again.’

  His woman came back with her arms full of apparel. Zvi put the best of it in a blanket, along with the jewellery and food. It made a large bundle that would need both of us to heave back to camp.

  ‘Please,’ the daughter said. ‘Leave us something to eat.’

  I laughed. ‘Have you heard of Auschwitz?’

  They all nodded, heads down. Allied propaganda had made it very clear to the German people what the Nazis had done in their name.

  ‘Children starved, old people died of thirst – and that before they were gassed like rats and burnt in ovens. Now tell me you want food.’

  They were silent. I considered killing them – I could have done it easily enough – but reminded myself of my plan. It took priority and I couldn’t afford the risk of three irrelevant deaths derailing it.

  ‘Tell no one in the village of this,’ I said, as we left. ‘Because we will be back and I will find out if the others have made preparations. Remember – ear, eye, nose, lip …’

  It took us most of the rest of the night to get our loot back to the fence. There was no way we could get it over without help, so we gave the medals to the American sentries. They were happy and so were we. Our bank had opened.

  TWENTY-THREE

  ‘We need to go,’ Rachel said urgently.

  ‘Hold on.’ Mavros was looking for a suicide note. He asked her to stick her gloved hands into the hanged man’s pockets – nothing. He went through the door at the rear and checked the other rooms. The kitchen table was bare and there were no dirty plates or glasses anywhere. The two bedrooms, the walls of both lined by low oriental divans, were tidy and free of anything suggestive.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, when he returned to the living area.

  Mavros had taken the photo of the three men and a couple of others that were less gruesome and in what looked like European locations.

  ‘We really should call the police,’ he said.

  ‘And explain that we broke in?’

  ‘Why not? We could say the door was like that when we arrived. We didn’t leave any prints. Face it, the car may well have been spotted by a neighbour. Us too.’

  She shook her head in irritation. ‘It’s not as if your hair is standard under-cover operative style – you stick out a mile. Anyway, they’ll want to know what our interest was here.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’ll be worse if we drive off and they track us down.’

  ‘How about if I drive off and you stay here?’

  At first he thought she was joking. ‘And if you were seen?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to cover for me.’

  Mavros looked at her. ‘All right. I’ll make an anonymous call when we’re clear of the area.’

  They went back to the car, their heads bowed.

  ‘So you think it was suicide,’ Rachel said as they headed towards Asvestochori.

  He shrugged. ‘Hard to be sure without taking him down and examining the body. I didn’t see signs of anyone else’s presence.’

  ‘All right, let’s assume he killed himself,’ she said, following a sign to Thessaloniki. ‘Why? Do you think our visit upset him so much?’

  ‘Mention of your great-uncle certainly stopped him in his tracks. But don’t forget he was with one young man in Ayia Triadha yesterday and another drove them away. It seems a fair bet Baruh was brought to the house in Exochisti after they lost me.’

  ‘How did the old man look in the restaurant?’

  ‘He was talking with a fair amount of animation, as was his companion. I wouldn’t say he looked suicidal.’ Mavros took the photographs from his pocket. ‘And then there’s the question of the photograph. Baruh Natzari, Shlomo Catan and Aron Samuel.’

  Rachel glanced at the images on his lap. ‘Now we know for certain my great-uncle survived Auschwitz. When do you think those were taken?’

  ‘Difficult to tell. They look to be in early middle age, don’t you think? Your great-uncle was born in 1925, so he’d have been thirty-five in 1960, forty in 1965.’ He raised one of the photos to the light. ‘Actually, they all seem to be younger in this. It could have been taken in the mid-50s.’ He studied Aron Samuel. His face was lined and his expression intense. He looked like a man on a mission. At least there were no seve
red limbs in that shot. The men were wearing suits with open-necked shirts and standing in front of what Mavros thought were rhododendron bushes.

  ‘You think they cut those heads off?’

  ‘Seems likely. A display of trophies. You noticed that the dead men’s faces were European, although sunburned?’

  ‘Mm.’ Rachel seemed distracted.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘That the war didn’t stop in 1945.’

  She didn’t speak again until they were in the city. ‘Are you going to phone the police, then?

  ‘Yes. There’s a public phone.’

  He got out and used the phone card he kept in his wallet. Speaking in a clipped and high-pitched voice, he gave the basic information and location then rang off.

  When he got back in, Rachel was looking at the map. ‘I want to visit the Jewish cemetery,’ she said, her voice low. ‘You don’t have to come.’

  ‘No, I’d like to see it.’

  ‘Direct me, then,’ she said, tossing the folded map to him.

  ‘You wouldn’t prefer me to use your new-fangled phone?’

  She didn’t bother to acknowledge that.

  The Fat Man was stretched out on the sofa with a copy of Rizospastis over his face. He still picked up the party organ most days, though its hectoring tone and one-dimensional vision of the world got him down. He had consumed a light lunch – a six-egg omelette, a couple of country-style sausages and a salad – and was having his regular mid-afternoon doze.

  He woke when the front door was smashed open, the alarm immediately blaring. A few seconds later came the crash of the first Molotov cocktail through the window. It hit the wall above the TV and sucked in all the air from the vicinity. A second bottle bounced off the sofa and rotated towards the armchair beyond, spewing a spray of flame that ignited the newspaper. A third smashed through the window. Yiorgos was already off the couch and heading for the kitchen. He pulled the pump-action shotgun from beneath the table and racked the slide.

  ‘Come on, you fuckers!’ he yelled, thundering out into the hall, which was already ablaze. A bottle with a flaming rag in the top smashed on the floor in front of him. The Fat Man tried to see beyond the flames, feeling his arms burn. He turned and saw that the saloni was an inferno. Flames were running up the stairs of the maisonette as well. The only exit was the front door. It was pulled shut by a figure in black, a balaclava over the face.

  ‘Shit!’ Yiorgos took a step back. Tongues of fire licked at his feet. He was struggling to breathe. He had only one option. Or rather six. He fired all the rounds at the door, ducking as air rushed in from outside.

  The Fat Man lowered his head and, bull-like, pounded through the flames. He piled through the remains of the door and ended up on the other side of the street, his lungs and eyes stinging, and the shotgun still in his hands.

  A car stopped and a young man opened the door. ‘Get in!’ he said. ‘I’ll take you to the hospital.’

  Yiorgos was still gasping for breath, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. ‘Fire … brigade,’ he gasped.

  ‘Too late for that, my friend.’

  ‘Other … houses …’

  ‘All right.’ The driver made the call. ‘They’re on their way. How are you?’

  ‘Fucking … roasted.’

  The driver sniffed. ‘Pretty rare, I’d say.’

  The Fat Man felt consciousness slip away. As his system shut down, he was struck by the idea that he’d met the young man before. Who was he? No, surely not …

  Then his brain short-circuited and he plummeted, unknowing, into the fiery lower depths.

  The new Jewish cemetery in the northern suburb of Stavroupoli was closed, presumably because of the risk of defacement. They stood at the gate and tried to see inside. There were monuments of marble, some of them large.

  ‘According to this,’ said Rachel, brandishing her guidebook, ‘there’s a memorial to the fifty thousand Jews of Thessaloniki who died in the Holocaust.’

  Mavros looked at the photograph. It showed a tall rectangle of marble with lettering in Hebrew and Greek, a Star of David and what he presumed was a stylized, semi-circular menorah on top.

  ‘Maybe it’s just as well,’ Rachel said, turning away.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, none of my ancestors are likely to be in here, are they? The Nazis and the city council destroyed the old cemetery to make way for the university.’

  Mavros kicked himself in the brain. ‘It’s a peaceful place,’ he said inadequately.

  ‘Which means that the likes of my great-uncle and his friends have no place here.’ She looked at him. ‘Though I suppose Baruh will end up in his family tomb, if there is one.’

  ‘Maybe you should talk to the Jewish community,’ he suggested. ‘I know Allegra Harari’s doing our research, but there are bound to be people who knew Aron, or at least of him.’

  ‘Like Ester Broudo, you mean?’ she said waspishly. ‘I don’t need to hear that he was a collaborator and traitor again, thanks.’ Her head dropped. ‘That photo suggests she was right about him being a murderer, though.’

  They stood around for a few more minutes.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you to see someone before we go to Allegra’s.’ He’d decided that keeping Shimon Raphael and her apart was pointless.

  They got into the car, Rachel taking the wheel again. He told her to head for the port. The Jeep was only fifty metres down the road when a black pickup passed them, going in the opposite direction. It was loaded down with skin-headed young men in black shirts, others wearing motorbike helmets. A Greek flag and one bearing the Phoenix Rises’ emblem flew from either side behind the cab.

  Rachel slammed her foot on the brake. ‘Oh no, you don’t,’ she muttered, slipping into reverse.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Mavros said, more alarmed than he wanted to show. ‘We’re outnumbered.’

  ‘But we’ve got a lot more power.’ Rachel completed her turn and rocketed back towards the cemetery gate.

  The young men were preparing to get down, two of them holding spray cans.

  ‘Hold on,’ Rachel said, her eyes narrowed.

  ‘No!’ Mavros shouted.

  The Cherokee hit the side of the pickup at about forty kilometres an hour. The occupants of the cargo bay went flying, while the men in the cab didn’t jump clear in time. Rachel dropped into second gear and pushed the pickup, now on its side, towards the wall ahead. The impact was jarring.

  Mavros looked around. Dazed young men were picking themselves up from the road. Rachel reversed towards them and they scattered.

  ‘Jesus, you might have killed someone,’ he said, surprised the airbags hadn’t inflated. ‘The driver and at least one other man are still in the cab.’

  ‘Fuck them.’ She opened her window and shouted after the scattering neo-Nazis. ‘Stay and fight, you cowards! Morons! Animals!’

  Mavros didn’t translate. He got out, ran to the pickup and tugged at the door on the top. He could see two men inside. Both were conscious, one flattening the other. Neither were wearing seat belts.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he yelled.

  They both said they were and that the bitch was going to die, before they saw who was speaking to them.

  ‘Fuck you, hippy!’ the nearer one yelled. He scrabbled for a set of brass knuckles.

  Mavros went back to the Jeep. Rachel was on the tarmac, still screaming at the retreating fascists.

  ‘Inside!’ he said. ‘Now!’ He got in the driver’s side. ‘Now!’

  Rachel climbed in the other side, but not before she’d picked up one of the spray cans and written the word ‘Pigs’ on the underside of the pickup.

  ‘That was … risky,’ Mavros said, as he drove away, turning into the first backstreet he could find. ‘Map reading, please.’ He glanced at her. ‘That’s quite a temper you have under the ice-princess exterior.’

  ‘Bastards,’ she said, breathing heavily. ‘Disgusting sc
um.’

  ‘True. But you just took the law into your hands like them. They dragged you down to their level.’

  She confined herself to giving him directions until they saw the masts and funnels of the ships in the port.

  Miraculously he found a parking place and killed the engine.

  ‘Not too much damage to the bumper.’

  ‘Why do you think I got a monster like this?’

  As they walked to Shimon’s office, Mavros wondered about that. Had Rachel been planning on confronting members of the Phoenix Rises? Last night’s performance at the square nearby suggested so.

  The sooner he found her great-uncle, dead or alive, the better.

  Mavros’s phone rang as they were about to walk into Raphael and Company. He saw from the screen that it was Niki. His heart missed a beat.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said to Rachel and stepped away, suppressing a groan. He did not need to be nagged at this juncture.

  ‘Alex,’ she said, when he answered. ‘Something bad’s happened.’

  Did she mean the rally? No, it didn’t sound like it. His gut clenched and visions of his mother, sister, Niki herself flashed before him.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t worry about me. It’s the Fat … it’s Yiorgos.’

  ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘It’s not that. Alex, his neighbour Mr Kostas rang. He wanted you and I told him you were out of town and he didn’t want to tell me and I said I couldn’t give him your mobile number unless—’

  ‘Niki!’ he shouted. ‘What happened to the Fat Man?’

  ‘Sorry, darling. His house … it’s burned down.’

  ‘What? Is he all right?’

  ‘That’s the problem. Firemen have put the blaze out, but they haven’t found his body. They’re still searching, of course. They say there was broken glass and petrol. It doesn’t look like an accident. There was a report of shots being fired too.’