Man Who Wanted Tomorrow (25 page)

If he could avoid panic, he could save his mind, he knew. That was the trick. Never for a moment lose control of his reasoning. And consider everything logicably, forbidding any self-delusion.

How stupid he had been, he reflected, bitterly. Perez had been right. He had been manipulated as easily as a child's hand-puppet, performing to a carefully prepared script. If only he had stayed safely in Russia …

He stopped the recrimination, fighting to regain control. His mind had slipped, he accepted, worriedly. Exactly what shouldn't have happened. That was how Perez would want him to think, undermining his self-control with personal anger, driving common sense away with his own exasperation.

Perez's story could easily have been concocted, he resumed again, the reasoning breaking away in another direction in a desperate search for the smallest degree of hope. Again he pushed the confidence back with logic. He had to be logical. He repeated the instructions to himself, like a child learning a calculation table. It didn't really matter whether the Nazis had been shot or not, he decided. Or whether the Russians had declared him a defector. So anxious was he for a lifeline he had erased from his mind the pictures and recorded confession. They were enough. More than enough. It would all be made available to the authorities, even if everything else was a lie. So arrest was inevitable. And the pictures would be published, if he were thought to be wandering in Berlin. So he
would
be hunted, like the Jews had been thirty-five years before. And the city
was
an island. There was no way he could get out. Why had he forgotten that? It was a ridiculous omission. Was it his mind blocking out the unacceptable? He'd recorded the tendency a hundred times, in every camp in which he had worked.

His tongue explored the now-aching cavity. If only the cyanide implant were still there, he thought. He would have used it. He would have had to. He couldn't stand capture. He knew he couldn't. He squeezed his eyes shut, visualizing what would happen. Arrest. Questioning. Mockery. Humiliation. A trial, where he would appear like a pet animal, for people to stare at. And then the imprisonment, the empty, sense-rotting incarceration in stinking cells where he would become sub-human, like they always did. He shuddered. He knew too well what happened to people in prisons to let it happen to him. And it would be imprisonment, he was sure. He would be tried in Germany, for war crimes. They'd ignore the Statute of Limitations, in his case. But they'd stop short of the death sentence. He'd probably be sent to Spandau, forced to listen to the gibbering of Rudolf Hess. The Russians would like that. It would give them a continuing excuse for the Four-Power presence in the city.

He became conscious of the bulge beneath his jacket and reached in, remembering the Russian passport. He pulled it out, covering it with his hand against any passerby recognizing it as a Soviet document. It identified him, he decided, immediately. If someone grabbed him, challenging his identity, he could argue. And perhaps escape. But not if he carried papers showing who he was. Ahead he saw a rubbish basket affixed to a lamp standard. He glanced around, ensuring he was still unobserved, then quickly dropped the passport in, hardly pausing in his stride. Once he was freed of the document, the unsteady elation flooded him again. Now no one could prove who he was. Not instantly, anyway. He turned into Buckowerdamm, sighing with relief at the sight of the park. Leafless trees shivered ahead of him in the winter cold. It was like a churchyard, he thought. The unexpected sight of his own face, staring back at him from a newspaper stand, was like a physical punch. He stopped, the gasp pulled from him. There were two pictures. One was clearly from the cellar confession. But the other was an official print, obviously older than the first. From Russia, he accepted. So it was true. Everything the Jew had said was true. He was inescapably trapped. But then he'd already known that, he reasoned. The refusal to accept reality annoyed him. It showed immaturity.

“Space Scientist is Nazi Murderer” said the headline. There were smaller headlines, but he was too far away to read them.

He turned, small sounds grunting from him, like a puppy nervous in a new house. He ran across the highway, twisting between cars, then forced himself to stop, aware of the attention he was attracting. Inside the park, he hurried over the grass, anxious to get into the middle, to an isolated part. He felt a choking sensation, like drowning. He coughed, near to vomiting, recognizing as he bent double the extent of the nervousness. No, he corrected. Not nervousness. Fear … fear like the Jews said he would feel. Like they had felt. It was working, he told himself. Perez's torture was working. Because of the cold, the park was almost deserted. But he was hot. The feeling came in spasms, with the regularity of a heartbeat. The nausea was at the back of his throat and his skin began to irritate. He felt the perspiration break out over his face and back. He scratched, but the irritation seemed to increase. He looked down, concentrating for the first time since leaving the cellar on his own appearance. His suit had dried into concertina creases from the sweat that had soaked him during the confrontation with Perez. His shirt was creased and stained, too, and again he became aware of his own smell. He brought his hand to his face. After the surgery, his beard had never been heavy, but stubble stuck out in odd islands over his face. He looked disgusting, he knew. But his very appearance might be protection, he decided, still seeking escape. Immediately the pendulum swung, rejecting it. Perez
had
got to his mind, insidiously, like water finding its way under a stone. He'd always been so sure of the strength of his own mind. Now that confidence was washed away, as easily as a twig in a stream. He
had
been beaten, he accepted. There was no point in fighting. Or running. The apathy crept over him, numbing. Is this how they felt, those Jews who had been whipped and herded like cattle into pens for him to select? And those in the Russian camps, the people with blank eyes, sure of only one thing, their helplessness. Resistance flickered, like a candle in the wind. But there was a difference. Surely they'd withstood it much longer, he thought, critical of himself. He'd known men brought into the laboratory after six months, sometimes a year, all the time knowing they were to be experimented upon, who still weren't at the level to which he'd been reduced in hours. He groaned heavily, pulling the apathy around him like a blanket. So what? It didn't matter whether he was the weaker or stronger. He shivered, suddenly conscious of the cold. Instinctively he glanced at his watch, but found it missing. He must have been there at least an hour, he decided. Again the shrug. It still didn't give him an estimate of what time it was. Did that matter, either? He stood up, stamping the life into his feet and legs, moving slowly along the empty pathways. There was a sudden pain in his face, like a reminder, and again his tongue went to the extraction.

Without thought, he found himself on the edge of the park. He hesitated, his mind refusing to function. Still undecided, the erosion now well advanced, he pushed out into the street. A boy approached, looking at him, and the fear jumped immediately. The child went on and Kurnov stared over his shoulder, but there was no answering look. He released the breath, relaxing. But at what, he demanded, attempting to recover some control over himself. That there was no recognition? Or that there hadn't been the stare of realization that would have meant the end to the pointless meandering around the streets of a city he had once loved. Another newspaper poster shouted his name. He drew closer, hunched into the coat. Every newspaper looked the same, dominated by his photograph. The seller looked up and frowned, uncertainly. Kurnov hurried by, apprehensively. He imagined he heard a shout and immediately began running, blindly, pushing through the startled people until he reached a junction. He swerved to his right, listening for the following footsteps or shouts. Breath pumped from him and his chest hurt, like it had when he had climbed down the hotel fire escape. How long ago that seemed! The first positive step of an unnecessary journey, he reflected. Oh God, how his injured leg hurt. He crossed the road, still hurrying, moving into a shopping arcade. There he stopped, looking behind. No one followed. Another false alarm. They said he'd run, frightened at anything, he remembered. The scare had momentarily blown away the apathy, and now thoughts were engaging more easily.

He was allowing them the satisfaction they had planned, he realized, suddenly. He was scurrying, stinking with his own fear, because they had told him that was what he was going to do. The anger flared in him. He'd long ago written a thesis on the characteristic of the Jewish people to accept oppression. There were isolated exceptions, of course. Warsaw. And Treblinka. But generally there had been little resistance. He'd sneered at it, he recalled, pointing it up as an inherent weakness in the race. And now he, Heinrich Köllman, one of the most feared and respected Nazis of the Third Reich, was doing exactly the same. He was behaving exactly like a Jew.

He'd deny them their final satisfaction, he decided. Again the cavity twitched, but this time he concentrated upon the pain. They'd revealed their fear by that extraction, he determined. And until now he had missed the clue. Their only fear was that he would have committed suicide to deprive them of the spectacle of a hunt, followed by a trial.

So he'd die. And beat them.

He tried to locate the street name, feeling for the first time the tiredness grab at him. He'd walked a long way, he realized, further than he could recall walking in one day. Mental fatigue was combining with the physical exhaustion, too. Geraerstrasse. There would be a U-Bahn station very soon. He hurried along, looking for the Underground. Now he had a purpose, he was more controlled. The idea of being the victor pleased him. It always had. He'd always enjoyed winning, Kurnov thought. Perhaps irrationally so. Certainly what little defeat he had so far experienced had always caused him too much anger.

It would hurt, he decided, suddenly, remembering his abhorrence of pain. He felt the sweat flush from him again. But only for a second, he rationalized. Just the briefest second, providing he was very careful about throwing himself completely beneath the train. So there could be no pulling back, no last-minute change of heart. If he balked at the last moment, trying to twist away, then there
would
be horrific injuries. And pain. A lot of pain. He walked on, positively. It was almost as if he got courage from the determination to spite them. Just a second, he reassured himself again. Then it would all be over. Everything would be over.

He identified the station, immediately ahead. And a newspaper seller, next to the entrance. He hesitated, uncertainly. He'd forgotten the prominence of his photograph. It didn't matter. He'd have to pass. He waited until a group of people moved towards the station, then hurried up, tagging along behind and averting his face from the news-stand as he went by. Again he tensed for a shout, but nothing happened.

Inside, the warmth enveloped him and for a moment he paused, enjoying the comfort. He'd grown very cold in the park, he realized. Far below he heard the clatter of a train. Only a second, he thought again. He'd hardly feel anything. It would be just like the cyanide that he'd carried for so long and conditioned himself to use. Near the cash desk, he saw the tariff and smiled. The last laugh, he thought. He'd commit suicide with the money that the Jews had provided. He passed over the mark, turning his face as he received the ticket and the thirty pfennig change. The doubt began to snatch at him as he descended the stairs. In five minutes, maybe less, he'd be dead. He pictured the injuries his body would sustain under the wheels and actually stopped on the stairs, but the flow of people behind pushed him on. Perhaps it wouldn't be so quick. Anything could happen. Someone might see him move forward and try to grab him at the last moment, deflecting his fall. Perhaps the driver would even be alert enough to stop the train.

But he
had
to die. Had to. And where else, but in Berlin? Just as the Führer had done. He carried on down the stairs, trying to push back the fear. In five minutes. That's all. Just five minutes and it would all be over. Far away there was the rumble of an approaching train, like someone clearing their throat. The noise built up, gradually. It was as if his body had its own motivation, moving through people on the platform, while he stood aside, watching what was happening to himself. He gazed over the edge. One line would carry electricity, he realized, for the first time. It would burn. Would he feel the pain before the agony of the train? The noise was very loud now. Warm air gushed from the tunnel mouth, pushed ahead of the approaching vehicle. Three steps. That's all. Just three steps. Then fall forward, keeping his body stiff, so he would encounter both sets of wheels. Three steps. Only three steps. He'd be able to do it. The awareness of the courage came suddenly and the knowledge warmed him. He'd definitely be able to do it. From the blackness of the tunnel he saw approaching lights.

He took one step forward.

“That wouldn't be right, Heinrich, would it?”

He jerked around, noises clogging in his throat, the determination to die kicked away like a ladder being snatched from beneath a workman. Smiling at him was the man who'd ridden in the front of the Mercedes. And the driver who had threatened to crush his hands. They moved around, interposing themselves between him and the track, destroying the opportunity.

“Can't have you committing suicide,” said the driver, casually. “That would be far too easy. You haven't run far enough yet. Not standing up to it at all well, are you?”

The train hissed into the platform and people surged forward. He pressed against them, eyes bulged at the two men. The bastards. The filthy, scheming bastards. All the time they'd followed him, ensuring that he was performing to their prepared scenario. Perez had probably filmed it, for later showing at the university … “and here's how he scuttled through the Berlin where he had once strutted in his S.S. jackboots …”