Fatherland

Frau Trinkl turned to face him. She had a thin face, thin nose (her brother’s nose), thin lips. A cameo brooch gathered a blouse of frilly purple at her bony throat.

“Do you understand?” he repeated.

She gazed at him with clear grey eyes, unreddened by crying. Her voice was clipped and dry: “Perfectly.”

They moved across the corridor into a small, windowless reception room. The floor was made of wood blocks. The walls were lime green. In an effort to lighten the gloom, someone had stuck up tourist posters given away by the Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft: a night-time view of the Great Hall, the Fuhrer Museum at Linz, the

Starnberger See in Bavaria. The poster which had hung on the fourth wall had been torn down, leaving pockmarks in the plaster, like bullet holes.

A clatter outside signalled the arrival of the body. It was wheeled in, covered by a sheet, on a metal trolley. Two attendants in white tunics parked it in the centre of the floor — a buffet lunch awaiting its guests. They left and Jaeger closed the door.

“Are you ready?” asked March. She nodded. He turned back the sheet and Frau Trinkl stationed herself at his shoulder. As she leaned forward, a strong smell — of peppermint lozenges, of perfume mingled with camphor, an old lady’s smell — washed across his face. She stared at the corpse for a long time, then opened her mouth as if to say something, but all that emerged was a sigh. Her eyes closed. March caught her as she fell.

“It’s him,” she said. “I haven’t set eyes on him for ten years, and he’s fatter, and I’ve never seen him before without his spectacles, not since he was a child. But it’s him.” She was on a chair under the poster of Linz, leaning forward with her head between her knees. Her hat had fallen off. Thin strands of white hair hung down over her face. The body had been wheeled away.

The door opened and Jaeger returned carrying a glass of water, which he pressed into her skinny hand. “Drink this.” She held it for a moment, then raised it to her lips and took a sip. “I never faint,” she said. “Never.” Behind her, Jaeger made a face.

“Of course,” said March. “I need to ask some questions. Are you well enough? Stop me if I tire you.” He took out his notebook. “Why had you not seen your brother for ten years?”

“After Edith died — his wife — we had nothing in common. We were never close in any case. Even as children. I was eight years older than him.”

“His wife died some time ago?”

She thought for a moment. “In “53,1 think. Winter. She had cancer.”

“And in all the time since then you never heard from him? Were there any other brothers and sisters?”

“No. Just the two of us. He did write occasionally. I had a letter from him on my birthday two weeks ago.” She fumbled in her handbag and produced a single sheet of notepaper — good quality, creamy and thick, with an engraving of the Schwanenwerder house as a letterhead. The writing was copperplate, the message as formal as an official receipt: “My dear sister! Heil Hitler! I send you greetings on your birthday. I earnestly hope that you are in good health, as I am. Josef.” March refolded it and handed it back. No wonder nobody missed him.

“In his other letters, did he ever mention anything worrying him?”

“What had he to be worried about?” She spat out the words. “Edith inherited a fortune in the war. They had money. He lived in fine style, I can tell you.”

“There were no children?”

“He was sterile.” She said this without emphasis, as if describing his hair colour. “Edith was so unhappy. I think that was what killed her. She sat alone in that big house — it was cancer of the soul. She used to love music — she played the piano beautifully. A Bechstein, I remember. And he -he was such a cold man.”

Jaeger grunted from the other side of the room: “So you didn’t think much of him?”

“No, I did not. Not many people did.” She turned back to March. “I have been a widow for twenty-four years. My husband was a navigator in the Luftwaffe, shot down over France. I was not left destitute — nothing like that. But the pension… very small for one who was used to something a little better. Not once in all that time did Josef offer to help me.”

“What about his leg?” It was Jaeger again, his tone antagonistic. He had clearly decided to take Buhler’s side in this family dispute. “What happened to that?” His manner suggested he thought she might have stolen it.

The old lady ignored him and gave her answer to March. “He would never speak of it himself, but Edith told me the story. It happened in 1951, when he was still in the General Government. He was travelling with an escort on the road from Krakau to Kattowitz when his car was ambushed by Polish partisans. A landmine, she said. His driver was killed. Josef was lucky only to lose a foot. After that, he retired from government service.”

“And yet he still swam?” March looked up from his notebook. “You know that we discovered him wearing swimming trunks?”