Carnival (15 page)

Kohler was desperate and that could only mean St-Cyr and he had good reason to believe the girl hadn't killed herself. ‘Again I must defer to those detectives. I'm not a policeman.'

‘But were given privileged information and have read their report, which should have stated clearly if any had been taken.'

‘It's winter, Kohler. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention but the girl wore woollen gloves under her mittens, though those have since been removed.'

Schrijen must have opened the coffin and had a look himself, but more importantly, had let this Kripo know of it. ‘Your son, Generaldirektor …'

‘Was on duty when that girl chose to break his heart. As for myself and my Sophie, we were at the house in the country. I've vineyards at Kaysersberg—twelve and a half hectares of the Reisling­ on the Schlossberg slope, and thirty-six of the Gewürtztraminer on the Kayersberg-Kientzheim. Sophie likes to keep an eye on them with me. It's a little something we do together. Friends and associates visited on the Saturday after­ work and stayed well into the evening. We slept in late. The fresh air perhaps. Several can vouch for our whereabouts, but of course there is no need. Personally, as the father of that girl's fiancé, I have to question the colonel's motives. Was he infatuated­ with the Fräulein Ekkehard? Did he try to take advantage­ of her? He's known for that sort of thing, isn't he? Frau Lutze­ for one. Formerly Yvonne Eva Ellmann, Kohler, and one of those on her father's side. Just what does he hope to gain by claiming it was murder?'

There, it had been said, and Kohler would have to think about it.

Ellmann
and Jewish, ah, Christ! ‘Your wife, Generaldirektor?'

‘Has been dead for years though still sadly missed. My Sophie does her utmost. Here … Here, take a look at this.'

Swinging the chair around, he reached for a framed photo on the window shelf, took another and another. ‘The twenty-sixth of June, 1940, Kohler. A lot of us wanted it to happen.'

And had managed to make it to Strassburg in time to greet the Führer as he had stood outside the Cathedral with his generals, Keitel among them, the one who was now being referred to at home as the Lackey.

Sophie Schrijen wore a pillbox hat with a bit of net veiling the wind had teased. The light-coloured suit and high heels were perfect, the smile self-conscious as she faced the camera with her hand in that of the great one, Daddy right beside her and beaming.

‘It's impressive, Generaldirektor. You must be very proud of her.'

Was this one still needing lessons? ‘I am, Kohler. I am. The French …
Ach
, whatever else may be said of them, they're not good businessmen. Order … a place like this demands it. One can't be arrogant, and they are often insufferably so. Incompetence and petty jealousies have no place here. Mistresses don't flaunt their asses in our boardrooms or at official dinners and other functions. They belong on their backs or hands and knees, and that is where one should keep them. Now it is much better,
ja
. Things get done properly. In June of last year we had 169,235 members in our
Opfer
, now 227,186 and you can't do that without good business.'

The Offering, the Sacrifice. Cash given on a regular basis to keep the Party and its hierarchy going. The war effort also, of course.

‘Thirty thousand of us are now full members of the Party, Kohler. Well before the military call-up of August '41, over 2,100 had volunteered. The Waffen-SS, the Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. You name it and we've boys there and girls too. This firm has lost five so far. Five highly valued employees to the families of whom I continue to pay wages since it may make their burden a little less.

‘More coffee? Some more of the
Kugelhupf?
Frau Macher always takes such good care of me. Tireless, I tell you, Kohler. Tireless. A woman with a sense of duty that is a model to us all. Here, have another of these.'

The small cigars, the Schimmelpenninck Havana Milds, but for the road, was it? ‘Generaldirektor, your son …'

Was Kohler like a broken record? ‘
Ach,
it's good of you to remind me. This is my Alain. An Untersturmführer but soon to be promoted. Schutzhaftlagerführer Kramer thinks very highly of him.'

And if that wasn't warning enough, what was? In his SS uniform, Lieutenant Alain Fernand Schrijen looked like so many: smartly turned out, a handsome young man with a nice grin, big ears and a somewhat narrower face than the sister. ‘He's younger than your daughter.'

‘By four years. We really miss him here at the Works. Sophie tries, though hasn't the technical background, but with the war, what can one do?'

But send him close to home where the only guns he'll see or hear are those of his fellow SS and himself. ‘Did he ever visit the
Karneval
with the Fräulein Ekkehard?'

‘Alain? He might have. Now wait. I think he did go out there once with his sister and the girl, but that was last autumn. Late October, early November … well after the colonel had agreed to let them do what they wished. The Fräulein Bödicker was also with them, I believe. Frau Macher had a picnic basket made up for the young ones. Sausage, chicken, ham and a little of the 1940 Gewürztraminer, some of our late pears … How could I have forgotten? The Fräulein Bödicker fortunately has someone who can come in on short notice to tend that shop of her mother's. A neighbour. A lifelong friend and widow from that other war. Frau …
Liebe Zeit
, what was it now? Frau Oberkircher.
Ja
, that was it.'

And yet another warning and example of his being well informed. ‘This bookseller, Generaldirektor. How long has your daughter known her?'

Kohler hadn't liked the thought of his train companion tending the Bödicker bookshop. Perhaps it was a little too close for comfort. ‘My Sophie, you ask? At night she often finds a need to read herself to sleep. There are bookshops and bookshops, and that was one she had settled on. Young people are best when energy is demanded, as on a
Winterhilfswerk
Committee, and my Sophie makes fast decisions—at times too fast. The Fräulein Bödicker, I asked. A rejected schoolteacher? Surely there must have been a very good reason for her not to have been accepted back into the profession, but they worked well together, and when that happens, one learns to wait and watch.'

‘And you've no further concerns?'

‘I always have, but if you mean, do I for a moment believe my daughter was the intended victim of an imaginary murder plot Colonel Rasche has dreamed up for whatever reason, then no. Sophie was simply too busy here and had asked the Fräulein Ekkehard to go in her stead.'

Herr Kohler didn't ask if a lift had been found for the girl in one of the firm's lorries, he didn't even ask if Sophie had arranged­ such a thing. He simply waited to see the other photo that had been taken from the window shelf and perhaps he had better see it.

‘It's of Sophie, myself and Alain with Gauleiter Wagner on the platform at the 12 October rally in 1941 in Strassburg. The Karl Roos Platz, formerly
place
Broglie, and thousands, Kohler. Thousands.
Mein Gott
, the cheering. They must have heard it in Berlin, similar rallies being held throughout Elsass
.
Herr Wagner was to have been the guest of honour at my son's wedding in May. A very important man, very well liked and loved by many.'

And another warning, was that it?

‘Anything even remotely connected with my Works, Kohler, and I am to be informed of it. Go where you wish, ask what you will. If you need anything, it's yours. Restaurants, theatres—those little diversions a man finds necessary especially when away from home. Anything. Just tell them Löwe sent you and it'll be taken care of. Two suicides, nothing more. Then it's back to Paris for that partner of yours and yourself, or first a little visit home if you wish it. All can be arranged.'

No problem. ‘
Danke
, Generaldirektor. I'll be sure to tell Louis that it's better to lie down with the lions than to hole up in some dumb old citadel and freeze.'

The street was narrow and winding and instantly it made St-Cyr think of the Middle Ages. Stepped facades of overhanging storeys, their shutters broken in places and crooked in others, climbed on either side to sway-backed, gabled roofs where tiles were loose or missing and storks could well roost in springtime. The half-timbered walls were of that faded pink, white or brown stucco, soot-stained by the centuries. Oriel windows, with leaded crown glass, looked to character, not to tidiness, reflecting shadows from their bottle-round panes while architrave carvings gave the story of each builder, those of a former wine merchant using the back-facing,
S
-shaped scrollwork of the Gauls, the Celts, to outline bunches of grapes.

Around one, life went on with that same suppressed interest as found in Paris and other cities in France. Always, too, it appeared, one had best look as if going about one's business especially as a dark, forest-green Mercedes tourer, a big, powerful, lonely car, was all but blocking the street a short distance away, the red
V
of its licence plate signifying
Verfügung
, by order, by decree, and a petrol allowance, whereas in France an
SP
sticker, the
Service Public
, would have been pasted inside the front windscreen.

There was a
Luftschutzkeller
, an air-raid shelter, in a cellar nearby. Two of the
Schupos
, the
Schutzpolizei
, the urban constabulary, strolled toward him, he immediately stepping to the end of a queue and wishing he had a shopping bag. The gilded, black lettering of
La Charcuterie du Pabst
had been scraped away to be replaced by
Delikatessengeschäft Pabst
, the prewar lettering still showing faintly through.

None of the lovely wrought-iron shop signs hung anywhere. All had been either taken for scrap or hidden away.

Next door to the bookshop, which was beyond the tourer and at a bend, a woman bundled in black had paused while sweeping steps that didn't need to be swept. She was looking back down the street at him. Guilty … was she feeling guilty about something? Still she hesitated, her eyes watering as he sought her out. ‘Frau Oberkircher?' he asked, causing her to dart indoors and bolt the door.

Closed
, her little sign read.
By Order
. She had eked out a living by making fruit-flavoured leathers and boiled sweets for schoolchildren, had returned from her brother-in-law's funeral to find her means of support had fallen prey to being classed as nonessential now that the Reich had finally gone to full mobilization.

The lace curtain was very French and he'd seen thousands like it, but what, really, had she been up to? Watching the street for himself or for Hermann, was that it, eh? A Gestapo informant? And why had God put her next door to the bookshop?

God often did things like that. He let chance play such a part these days, made surprises all too evident when least expected and only the more unsettling. Had she been questioned on her return? Had Hermann inadvertently let something slip while on that train?

Kohler waited behind the door to the laboratory and next to the foyer of the executive offices. He knew he hadn't much time. Sophie Schrijen hadn't hung around to be questioned while he had been closeted with her father. She hadn't even bothered to lock up, had left in such a rush her office door was wide open, but would Frau Macher leave that front desk …

It was empty. Muffled, the sound of Schrijen dictating a letter came faintly into the foyer where oil portraits of himself and Gauleiter Wagner flanked that of the Führer.

Closing the door a little, Kohler took in the office at a glance. Everything was in its place because she had so many things on the go. A table to the right held a beautifully made model of the
Karneval
as it had been. Brightly coloured, gay, exciting, tantalizing … the Ferris wheel, the Super Car Monte Carlo, Barrel of Love, House of Mirrors … were all to scale, but the time to have made it must have been considerable.

Behind it, on the wall, there was a diagram of the ruins with the locations and distances all keyed to the model and no problem at all in finding a potential victim, none either of fading away quickly or of watching someone put on her skis. Was that how it had been?

The left side of the desk was reserved for the volunteer work. Manila paper file folders overlapped in sequence: the Women's Auxiliaries of the Nazi Party, among them the
Frauenschaft
, the mothers and housewives, the
Arbeitsmaiden
too, the Labour Service for girls from eighteen to twenty-one, also the BDMs—the League of German Girls—those from fifteen to twenty-one, and the
Jungmädel
from ten to fourteen, then, too, the Red Cross catering service at the hospital and the
Winterhilfswerk
. A busier lady by far than even that father of hers had claimed. Speeches to give, receptions at which to be the guest of honour, pins and other awards to hand out, the names of the recipients all underlined. The stress on her must be really something.

To the right was everything dealing with the Textifabrikschrijen. Orders, letters to be signed, requisitions for supplies, production figures, fabric specifications … the Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine and SS. Uniforms too, for the BDMs, and cloth for civilian needs. Dress fabric, blouse, shirt and suit fabric … man-hours expected,
Straflager
penalties handed out to slackers and troublemakers—as good an indication as any of how contented a camp was. Wages … seventy pfennigs per day per man, per twelve-hour shift but paid only to the French POWs, the Russians and the Poles receiving zero, but even at the base level of the official exchange rate and in
Reichskassenscheine
, the Occupation marks in France and other countries, that seventy pfennigs equalled
14 francs
, or
17 British pence
, or
32 American cents
.