Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [50]
“Holstein turned over four Jewish children who were being hidden.”
“No matter what Herr Dunkel tells you, he was a Brown Shirt.”
“When you question Bargel, remind him of how it was when he was a block warden.”
“It is known that the child turned his own mother in.”
“Yes, stole the entire business and house of the Jewish family when they disappeared.”
The overloaded garbage can spilled and the overflow vomited and the stench mingled in Rombaden’s ashes.
Ulrich Falkenstein slept in a mansion confiscated from the brewery owner. It was a twenty-two-room affair on the south bank shared with a half-dozen former Schwabenwald inmates working with the Allied Government.
At five o’clock in the morning of the beginning of the second week of occupation, his phone rang. It was Werner Hoffman.
“What in God’s name do you want at this hour!” Falkenstein demanded.
Hoffman answered with a single name. “Klaus Stoll.”
He spoke the name of the commandant of Schwabenwald, who had disappeared at the end of the fighting.
“Stoll!” Falkenstein repeated in a chilled whisper.
“And his dear wife, Emma. We have them both.”
“Where? How?”
“The information came to us from someone who has a lot to answer for. Stoll has been hiding in the basement of a bombed-out rubble on Friedrichstrasse. He placed his trust in one of our most reliable informers.”
“The Allied authorities! Do they know?”
“As a matter of fact it was Lieutenant Blessing who captured Stoll an hour ago. He said that for the sake of certain identification it would be a good idea if a dozen or so former inmates from Schwabenwald interviewed Stoll right in the basement before he is taken into custody.”
“God in heaven! Major O’Sullivan will be furious!”
“Major O’Sullivan knows. He said that he will be touring the Landkreis all day. And he added something quite strange. He said, ‘What I don’t know won’t hurt me.’ What did he mean by that, Ulrich?”
Falkenstein threw his blankets off. The blood rushed through his heart so quickly and heavily he thought his chest would break. He fought into his clothing, called for his chauffeur, and soon crossed the pontoon bridge into Rombaden. He was met by Hoffman in the square in the first light of day.
They stopped before a rubble pile of what had once been Kaufmann’s Department Store. No one seemed about. Hoffman, grimacing from the pain of his warped body, and Falkenstein, puffing from age, stumbled through the wreckage and down into a foul-smelling basement.
A flashlight beam hit them. “In here!” someone called.
They made their way into a cleverly concealed cell all but blocked by twisted steel and burned-out timbers. They gasped for breath and adjusted their eyes to the lantern light. A dozen German inmates of Schwabenwald had been assembled.
On a bed of rags in the corner, Obersturmfuehrer Klaus Stoll and his wife, Emma, cringed.
One of his former prisoners kicked him in the stomach. The blow made more noise than damage. “Stand in the presence of Ulrich Falkenstein,” the man demanded.
Klaus Stoll slid his back up the wall, holding his arms across his face to ward off any blows.
Another of them grabbed Emma Stoll by her hair and jerked her to her feet.
Ulrich pushed through the ring and stood face to face with the Nazi. Stoll was a great brute of a man, as large in frame as Falkenstein had once been before the flesh had been beaten from his body. He looked from Klaus to Emma and back again. He tried to renew the nine years in Schwabenwald in his mind. There she stood as she was. A dull, stupid, low-class, foul-mouthed slut. Emma, who wore her sweaters and skirts tight to taunt the inmates. Emma, who called for naked men and women to perform for her. Emma, who collapsed in sweaty exhaustion from lashing inmates.
And Klaus Stoll, brewery-wagon driver saved from anonymity by his depraved Nazis. Klaus the braggart, who taunted Ulrich by descriptions of the gassings and how he liked to watch the castrations at the medical experiment center; how he made a half-dozen prisoners