papers, in his briefcase. Nothing unusual, for a salesman of industrial machinery, supposedly working for a company in Zurich. No border guard, not even an SS officer on a Monday morning, would know that it mattered. And it actually might, he thought, though he was one of those men who had always suspected that, in the end, nothing mattered, and he’d more or less built his life on that principle.
What certainly did matter, at that moment, was a message from an Englishman called Brown. A decent, dog-and-garden sort of a name, he thought, euphonious, that implied a euphonious sort of a life—the odd revolver and lockpick aside. Of course Brown was no more his real name than S. Kolb was his, and if there was any distinction to be made, it lay in certain filing cabinets, where Brown was designated a
workname,
and S. Kolb an
alias.
Mr. Brown, a fattish, placid fellow, who hid from the world behind pipe and sweater, was just then responsible for getting S. Kolb out of Hamburg, and S. Kolb found himself wondering, for the hundredth time, just how the hell he was going to manage it.
Six days earlier, the steamship
Von Scherzen
had not appeared in Hamburg harbor, and while the men at the port office wouldn’t exactly say what had become of her, their faces hardened a certain way when he inquired, which suggested that she was at the bottom of the sea. But she would not, at any rate, be part of the escorted convoy of German ships which had been scheduled to sail to Lisbon. He would, they told him, have to wait for a berth on a different ship, and they deeply regretted the inconvenience.
So did he. This was difficult work, equal parts danger, discretion, and waiting, a mixture that was, to say the least, hard on the nerves. Its traditional palliatives were alcohol and sex—yet more danger and discretion required here, but one had to do
something
. One could go mad reading newspapers. But newspapers were, at least, safe; women were not. Of course he knew that the port of Hamburg virtually swarmed with prostitutes, one could have anything one could pay for, but many of the men who sought them out were known to be traveling alone, far from home, and such men were, especially under the present regime, of interest to the police. It was caution and discipline that had kept S. Kolb alive all these years but now he sighed miserably as he felt their chains tighten around his chest.
No,
he told himself,
this is not for you
.
Or was he, perhaps, being too hard on himself? He was, as it happened, waiting for a woman—this was the third night he had waited—and there was a bottle of apricot brandy hidden, from himself as much as anyone else, at the back of the top shelf of the room’s armoire. This woman, known only as Frulein Lena, was his single contact in Hamburg and he had gotten in touch with her when the
Von Scherzen
didn’t appear. She had somehow, and one could meditate at length on that
somehow,
signaled his predicament to Mr. Brown, and it was now her job to bring him news of a revised set of travel plans, which would reach Hamburg by means of a clandestine W/T set.
No secret radio could transmit from Germany—the Gestapo listened to all frequencies and would have a position fix on it soon enough—but coded messages could be received. This situation echoed that of ships at sea, naval and civilian, which could listen to transmissions but had, otherwise, to maintain radio silence. Some irony in this, Kolb thought, the governments of the warring nations had thereby attained a certain ideal level of supervision: one could only be instructed, one could not ask questions, one could not talk back.
So, by necessity a good soldier, he waited for orders. But he did allow himself some measure of speculation, to wit: if Frulein Lena were to come to his room with instructions for his exfiltration from this wretched city, could she not also, perchance, provide an hour of tender oblivion? Kolb closed his eyes and set his newspaper on the
What certainly did matter, at that moment, was a message from an Englishman called Brown. A decent, dog-and-garden sort of a name, he thought, euphonious, that implied a euphonious sort of a life—the odd revolver and lockpick aside. Of course Brown was no more his real name than S. Kolb was his, and if there was any distinction to be made, it lay in certain filing cabinets, where Brown was designated a
workname,
and S. Kolb an
alias.
Mr. Brown, a fattish, placid fellow, who hid from the world behind pipe and sweater, was just then responsible for getting S. Kolb out of Hamburg, and S. Kolb found himself wondering, for the hundredth time, just how the hell he was going to manage it.
Six days earlier, the steamship
Von Scherzen
had not appeared in Hamburg harbor, and while the men at the port office wouldn’t exactly say what had become of her, their faces hardened a certain way when he inquired, which suggested that she was at the bottom of the sea. But she would not, at any rate, be part of the escorted convoy of German ships which had been scheduled to sail to Lisbon. He would, they told him, have to wait for a berth on a different ship, and they deeply regretted the inconvenience.
So did he. This was difficult work, equal parts danger, discretion, and waiting, a mixture that was, to say the least, hard on the nerves. Its traditional palliatives were alcohol and sex—yet more danger and discretion required here, but one had to do
something
. One could go mad reading newspapers. But newspapers were, at least, safe; women were not. Of course he knew that the port of Hamburg virtually swarmed with prostitutes, one could have anything one could pay for, but many of the men who sought them out were known to be traveling alone, far from home, and such men were, especially under the present regime, of interest to the police. It was caution and discipline that had kept S. Kolb alive all these years but now he sighed miserably as he felt their chains tighten around his chest.
No,
he told himself,
this is not for you
.
Or was he, perhaps, being too hard on himself? He was, as it happened, waiting for a woman—this was the third night he had waited—and there was a bottle of apricot brandy hidden, from himself as much as anyone else, at the back of the top shelf of the room’s armoire. This woman, known only as Frulein Lena, was his single contact in Hamburg and he had gotten in touch with her when the
Von Scherzen
didn’t appear. She had somehow, and one could meditate at length on that
somehow,
signaled his predicament to Mr. Brown, and it was now her job to bring him news of a revised set of travel plans, which would reach Hamburg by means of a clandestine W/T set.
No secret radio could transmit from Germany—the Gestapo listened to all frequencies and would have a position fix on it soon enough—but coded messages could be received. This situation echoed that of ships at sea, naval and civilian, which could listen to transmissions but had, otherwise, to maintain radio silence. Some irony in this, Kolb thought, the governments of the warring nations had thereby attained a certain ideal level of supervision: one could only be instructed, one could not ask questions, one could not talk back.
So, by necessity a good soldier, he waited for orders. But he did allow himself some measure of speculation, to wit: if Frulein Lena were to come to his room with instructions for his exfiltration from this wretched city, could she not also, perchance, provide an hour of tender oblivion? Kolb closed his eyes and set his newspaper on the
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