A Man Without Breath

‘You know, I don’t think Herr Glinka minds very much what I say about him,’ I said. ‘Not as much as a lot of other people I can think of. But then that’s true of nearly everyone these days.’

‘You’ll feel a lot less sanguine about things when I’ve told you what I know,’ he said.

I lit a cigarette and flicked the match onto the slush-covered ground. I was smoking too much again, but then Russia does that to you. It was hard to pay much attention to your health after Stalingrad, knowing that so many Russians were hoping soon to kill you.

‘Then maybe I just don’t want to know,’ I said. ‘Maybe I should be more like Beethoven. It seems to me like he managed to do well enough when he didn’t hear a damn thing. Going deaf is probably very good for your health in Germany. These days I get the impression that listening to what other people say can be lethal. Especially listening to our leaders.’

‘Don’t I know it?’ Quidde said bitterly. He removed his helmet and rubbed his head furiously.

‘Now I begin to see and hear, and I think I might be looking at a man who maybe heard a lot more than just Midge Gillars on Radio Berlin.’

‘If Midge knew what I know, she’d play some very different tunes. Only this time they won’t be the devil’s.’

‘Still, those tunes are the good ones, right? I should know. I’m the apostle of cheap music. Just don’t tell the fellow on the pedestal.’

‘Did you come alone?’ he asked anxiously.

I shrugged. ‘I was thinking of bringing a couple of show girls. But then again, you did ask me to come alone. Now what’s this all about?’

Quidde lit another cigarette unsteadily with the stub of the old one. This did nothing for his nerves: the smoke plumed from his twitching mouth and flaring nostrils like the puff from a runaway train.

‘You’d better let some hydrogen out, corporal, or you’ll float away. Take it easy. Anyone would think you’re nervous.’

Quidde handed me the dispatch case.

‘What’s this?’ I asked.

‘A reel of recording tape,’ he said.

‘What do I want with this? I don’t own a tape recorder. I wouldn’t even know how to work one.’

‘That tape was made by Friedrich Ribe,’ said Quidde. ‘And it might just be what got him killed. Only two people knew what was on that tape, and one of them is dead.’

‘Ribe.’

Quidde nodded.

‘So how did your throat escape getting cut?’

‘I’ve asked myself the same question. I think Ribe and Greiss were killed because they were on the same duty roster. Whoever killed them must have figured they both heard what in fact only Friedrich Ribe had heard. And me, of course. Ribe wouldn’t ever have let Werner Greiss listen to what’s on this tape. At the time we all thought it was Greiss who was the Gestapo’s canary, when in fact it was Jupp Lutz all along. I only found out myself a couple of weeks ago when a friend from Lubeck wrote and told me about it.’

‘But Ribe played it for you,’ I said.

Quidde nodded. ‘We were friends. Good friends. Looking out for each other since way back.’

I glanced inside the dispatch case, which contained a box with the letters of the German Electricity Company – AEG – printed on it.

‘All right. It’s not the MDR Symphony Orchestra and it’s not the lost chord. So what’s on this tape?’

‘You remember when the leader came to Smolensk a few weeks ago?’

‘I still treasure the memory.’

‘Hitler had a meeting with Clever Hans in his office at Krasny Bor. In private. It was real cosy apparently – no aides, no adjutants, just the two of them. Only the telephone in the office hasn’t been working properly. It doesn’t always hang up when you drop the receiver back in the cradle, with the result that the operator continues to hear everything that’s said. Well, more or less everything.’

‘And so Ribe decided to tape-record it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Jesus.’ I sighed. ‘What was he thinking?’

‘He wanted a souvenir. Of Hitler’s voice. You get used to hearing him making a speech, but no one ever hears what he’s like when he’s relaxed.’

‘A signed photograph would have been less dangerous.’

‘Yes. About halfway through the tape Von Kluge guesses that he and Hitler could have been overheard, because he lifts the receiver and then bangs it down hard several times before the line is terminated.’

‘And so, what – Hitler and Von Kluge were worried that the army’s plans for a summer campaign in 1943 were compromised? Yes, I can see why that might bother them a bit.’

‘Oh, it’s worse than that,’ said Quidde.