We take this occasion to refer to another order of 6 March 1943, for the delivery of a gas door 100/192 for corpse cellar I of crematory uI, Bw 30a, which is to be built in the manner and according to the same measure as the cellar door of the opposite crematory u, with peep-hole of double 8 millimetre glass encased in rubber. This order is to be viewed as especially urgent…
NOT far from the hotel, north of Unter den Linden, was an all-night pharmacy. It was owned, as all businesses were, by Germans, but it was run by Rumanians — the only people poor enough and willing enough to work such hours. It was stocked like a bazaar with cooking pans, paraffin heaters, stockings, baby food, greeting cards, stationery, toys, film …Among Berlin’s swollen population of guest workers it did a brisk trade.
They entered separately. At one counter, Charlie spoke to the elderly woman assistant who promptly disappeared into a back room and returned with an assortment of bottles. At another, March bought a school exercise book, two sheets of thick brown paper, two sheets of gift wrap paper and a roll of clear tape.
They left and walked two blocks to the Friedrich Strasse station where they caught the south-bound U-bahn train. The carriage was packed with the usual Saturday night crowd — lovers holding hands, families off to the illuminations, young men on a drinking spree — and nobody, as far as March could tell, paid them the slightest attention. Nevertheless, he waited until the doors were about to slide shut before he dragged her out on to the platform of the Tempelhof station. A ten-minute journey on a number thirty-five tram brought them to the airport.
Throughout all this they sat in silence.
KRAKAU
18.7.43
[Handwritten]
My dear Kritzinger, Here is the list.
Auschwitz 50.02N 19.11E
Kulmhof 53.20N 18.25E
Blezec 50.12N 23.28E
Treblinka 52.48N 22.20E
Majdanek 51.18N 22.31E
Sobibor 51.33N 23.13E
Heil Hitler!
[Signed]
Buhler [?]
TEMPELHOF was older than the Flughafen Hermann Goering — shabbier, more primitive. The departures terminal had been built before the war and was decorated with pictures of the pioneering days of passenger flight- old Lufthansa Junkers with corrugated fuselages, dashing pilots with goggles and scarves, intrepid women travellers with stout ankles and cloche hats. Innocent days”. March took up a position by the entrance to the terminal and pretended to study the photographs as Charlie approached the car rentals desk.
Suddenly, she was smiling, making apologetic gestures with her hands — playing to perfection the lady in distress.
She had missed the flight, her family was waiting …The rental agent was charmed, and consulted a typed sheet. For a moment, the issue hung in the balance- and then, yes, as it happened, Fraulein, he did have something. Something for someone with eyes as pretty as yours, of course …Your driving licence, please …
She handed it over. It had been issued the previous year in the name of Voss, Magda, aged twenty-four, of Mariendorf, Berlin. It was the licence of the girl murdered on her wedding day five days ago — the licence Max Jaeger had left in his desk, along with all the other papers from the Spandau shootings.
March looked away, forcing himself to study an old aerial photograph of the Tempelhof airfield. BERLIN was painted in huge white letters along the runway. When he glanced back, the agent was entering details of the licence on the rental form, laughing at some witticism of his own.
As a strategy it was not without risk. In the morning, a copy of the rental agreement would be forwarded automatically to the Polizei, and even the Orpo would wonder why a murdered woman was hiring a car. But tomorrow was Sunday, Monday was the Fuhrertag, and by Tuesday -the earliest the Orpo were likely to pull their fingers out of their backsides — March reckoned he and Charlie would either be safe or arrested, or dead.
Ten minutes later, with a final exchange of smiles, she was given the keys to a four-door black Opel, with ten thousand kilometres on the clock. Five minutes after that, March joined her in the parking lot. He navigated while she drove. It was the first time he had seen her behind the wheel: another side of her. In the busy traffic she displayed an exaggerated caution which he felt did not come naturally.
SKETCH OF INSTALLATION BY MARTIN LUTHER
[Dated 15 July 1943; handwritten; 1 page]
THE lobby of the Prince Friedrich Karl was deserted: the guests were out for the night. As they passed through it towards the stairs the receptionist kept her head down. They were just another of Herr Brecker’s little scams — best not to know too much.
Their room had not been searched. The cotton threads hung where March had wedged them between door and frame. Inside, when he pulled Luther’s case out from beneath the bed, the single strand of hair was still laced through the lock.
CHARLIE stepped out of her dress and wrapped a towel around her shoulders.
