Chapters (50)
- Praise
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Teaser chapter
“I think he was probably quite good at keeping things hidden,” I said, thinking of the box his SS friend had buried in the garden. I was certain he must have known about it, contrary to what the American who dug it up had believed.
“In a garage on Donauwörther Landstrasse.”
“You mean that old Fulda tire place on the road to Kleinberghofen?” Krumper nodded. “What kind of a car?”
“I don’t know much about cars,” said Krumper. “I saw him in it before the war. Very proud of it, he was. Some sort of duo-tone cabriolet. Of course, business was better then and he could afford to run it. At the beginning of the war he even buried the wheels to stop anyone requisitioning it.” Krumper handed me a set of car keys. “And I know he looked after it, even though he didn’t drive it. I’m sure it will be in good running order.”
A few hours later I was driving back to Munich in a handsome-looking two-door Hansa 1700 that looked as good as it had the day it left the Goliath works in Bremen. I went straight to the hospital, collected Kirsten’s ashes, and then drove all the way back to Dachau and the Leitenberg Cemetery, where I had arranged to meet the local undertaker, Herr Gartner. I handed over her cremains and arranged for a short service of remembrance the following afternoon.
When I got back to my apartment in Schwabing, I tried some of the anesthetic again. This time it didn’t work. I felt as lonely as a fish in a toilet bowl. I had no relations and no friends to speak of other than the guy in the bathroom mirror, who used to say hello in the morning. Lately even he had stopped speaking to me and seemed, more often than not, to greet me with a sneer, as if I had become obnoxious to him. Maybe we had all become obnoxious. All of us Germans. There were none of us the Americans looked at with anything other than quiet contempt, except perhaps the party-girls and the snappers. And you didn’t need to be Hanussen the clairvoyant to read the minds of our new friends and protectors. How could you let it happen? they asked. How could you do what you did? It’s a question I had often asked myself. I didn’t have an answer. I don’t think any of us will ever have an answer. What possible answer could there ever be? It was just something that happened in Germany once, about a thousand years ago.
TEN
TEN