The Violent Century Page 9

  Fogg doesn’t need to ask where they had gone. War is a one-way ticket to a place where the train tracks end. The partisans had an Englishman recon officer before, Mallory, and before that an American, or an Armenian, Fogg isn’t quite sure, but they both ended up in holes in the snow.

  Drakul is a Jew without faith. He is a man without passion, and almost without anger. When he kills it is almost with regret, with an apologetic shrug. His men sit around the fire sharpening sticks. It isn’t easy to impale a man. One needs stout wood, sharp and strong, and enough power to spit a man on it, an animal force as the man struggles in the hands of his captors, screaming or cursing or begging. But there is no mercy.

  Fogg had been with the partisans earlier that day, on the road to Marosvásárhely. Though the Germans know the partisans operate in this area, they can’t always spare the military escort necessary to fend against them. The partisans stopped a truck coming through and dragged the two drivers out. They had come across from the town of Cluj. Their cargo was useless. Building materials. Didn’t matter to Drakul. Gave the order. The stakes were erected; the two men: impaled. Fogg watched the wood penetrating the men, into their anal cavity straight through their guts to their mouths. Spitted and left to rot on the side of the road, an old familiar message in an ancient script.

  – Like Vlad, Drakul tells him. Materialises by the fire, sits down to chat. Like they’re in some tea parlour in Budapest. Fogg listens to the night sounds, things moving in the foliage. Lookouts around their camp. High vantage point. The city of Marosvásárhely nestled far below. No SS should be able to sneak up on them. Though Fogg has private doubts.

  – Vlad? Fogg says.

  – Vlad the Third, Drakul says. Vlad Țepeș. They called him the Impaler. Rubs his hands mournfully together. The sound of dry leather, like pages turning in a book. It is an ancient message for my people, he says. Vlad was a Christian. It is said here in Transylvania that he was a hostage of the Turks as a boy. They raped him many times. When he grew up to be a man he fought them, impaling them as a warning and a message.

  Drakul makes a curious noise, somewhere between a spit and a laugh. Through the anus! he announces. His men laugh.

  – Your people? Fogg says. Yes, my people, Drakul says. Transylvania is a land of its own. Magyar, Romanian – here he makes as if to spit again – gypsy or German or Jew, we are first, all of us, of Transylvania. It is in the blood, my friend. It is in the soil.

  Germans, too, Fogg thinks. A minority in this mountainous land, like the Jews – but their fate in this war is very different. He says, You style yourself after him?

  – Of course! Vlad was defender of Transylvania.

  Fogg isn’t sure what to make of that. Had found a beat-up old volume of Stoker’s Drakula, in English, that the partisans, for whatever reason, kept. Two names, handwritten inside it, suggested both previous recon officers had had it in their possession at some point. Fogg saw it as an ill-omen. Avoided the book.

  – The land and the forests shaped me, Drakul declares. I am of this soil. I am the soil!

  He tends to speak in this fashion, when he speaks at all. Declaiming insane proclamations. His men hanging on to his every word. An assemblage of misfits, crooks and the damaged. See this Übermensch as some demi-god, as Vlad Third Reincarnate. Fogg, shivering despite the heat from the fire, tries to draw the conversation, if you can call it that, back to more pressing matters.

  – Brigadeführer Hans von Wolkenstein, he says.

  A sudden silence around the fire. The men turn black gazes, black as night, on this Englishman, this Fogg. Drakul is still. A piece of night, of old leather, a bat man in this land full of ancient horror stories.

  – Der Wolfsmann, he says. But quietly. His voice so soft it makes Fogg shiver. As soft as when he speaks the order to impale his prisoners.

  – Yes, Fogg says. Into that silence. Wraps his coat around him tighter. Nervous. The fog hovers at the edge of the clearing. When Fogg is nervous the fog responds. Though it is strangely different here, in the high altitude of the mountains. The fog here responds more clearly, almost eagerly, its touch on the skin is like the touch of silk. Yes, der Wolfsmann, he says, whispering the words.

  – What of him? Drakul says, at last. There is a nervous relaxation around the fire. The men turn back to their own affairs, the silence broken. But in this renewed conversation, Fogg nevertheless knows that they’re listening.

  – My masters in London are very interested in Herr Wolkenstein, Fogg says.

  – So, Drakul says. Seems to lose interest. Examines his nails in the light of the fire. They are long and jagged like talons. Fogg once again wonders what he was like before the change. Before Vomacht. The name brings uncomfortable feelings back. Feelings he had hoped to forget. Had pushed deep inside, into the dark recesses of the mind.

  – So, Fogg says.

  – He is a bloody Nazi, what, Drakul says. A bad imitation of Fogg’s accent. His companions laugh, dutifully. Come on, Drakul, Fogg says. Hates that name. Give me something I can use.

  – Yes, he is here, Drakul says. Herr Count von Wolkenstein. Der Wolfsmann. Ja?

  No more laughing. The fire casts a pale ring of light. At the edge of darkness, a young boy – Pèter? Something like that – whispers: Wolfskommando.

  The boy’s eyes as round and pale as moons. Drakul throws him a glance like a dagger. The boy flinches.

  – Ja, so, Drakul says. Wolfskommando.

  Sounds studiously bored.

  Department F of the Gestapo. Übermenschen hunters. Made up of the worst of Nazi Übermenschen themselves and the dregs of European society, a band of Germans and Ukrainians and Poles, a couple of Frenchmen, a plethora of Scandinavians. The wolf man found them, the wolf man trained them, the wolf man set them wild and free on this godforsaken corner of the world. Das Wolfskommando.

  – He wants you, Fogg says. Understanding dawning. Drakul smiles, his teeth like filed stakes. His men laugh. As though at the punchline of a joke.

  – Ach, it is so, Drakul says. Nodding.

  Wolf versus fucking bat, Fogg thinks, but doesn’t say. And I, Drakul says, and pauses, flashing again this smile, this almost boyish grin. And I want him, he says, so softly it is hard for Fogg to catch the words.

  46. TRANSYLVANIA 1944

  When Fogg thinks of the Carpathians, years later, it is with a mixture of horror and awe. Of the sun rising over a barren hillside, over men like scarecrows impaled on stakes driven into the frozen ground. No flies to mar their faces, frozen in screams of agony. The bodies preserved almost beautifully, in that cold, clean air.

  But he tries, very hard, not to think of Transylvania at all.

  – Here they come.

  The first trucks of the military convoy come around the bend, down below on the mountain road. Drakul and his men high above, concealed from view. Fogg tagging along. The sun high in the sky. Sunlight breaking through ice crystals in the peaks high above. Trees bathed in sunlight. The river Maros snaking in the distance in the valley where the city lies. Fogg shifting weight on the hard ground. Binoculars hard against his skin, his eyes feel trapped within them.

  – Are you sure?

  Drakul laughs, softly. The smell of earth and dust. Has a network of informants spread out across the towns and villages of Transylvania. The same devotion that his men show him. Admiration or fear, Fogg doesn’t know. A mixture of both. You don’t cross Drakul.

  Fogg watches the convoy. It goes slowly, the mountain pass is dangerous, the curves sharp, no rails to stop them from plunging hundreds of feet down. Heavy armoured trucks. In the middle of the convoy a jeep, a ramrod figure in the passenger seat, Fogg focuses the binoculars, sees. A mixture of loathing and that fear he can’t quite control. Bad blood, a history. History is made of cut-up pieces, like raw meat. Like open wounds. This one hurts. Paris. Things it’s better not to think about. Too dangerous. Still. Paris. Like a gaping wound in Fogg’s soul.

  – I want him dead, he says, whisp
ers, doesn’t even realise he’s speaking aloud. Beside him Drakul chuckles, something obscene in the sound. Oh, we would not want him to die too quickly, he says. Would we now.

  – Can you take him? Fogg says. But they are too high, they are strictly observers here.

  – Perhaps, Drakul says. They watch the convoy drive across the mountain pass, then slow. Stop. Men peek out of the roofs of the trucks. Guns at the ready. The jeep in the middle. The wolf man climbs out, Fogg watches, the man looks a little leaner, his close-cropped hair perhaps a little greyer at the temples. Looks this way and that. Smiles. Canines flash white in the sun. Scents the air.

  – Son of a bitch, Fogg says.

  – I can’t take the shot. One of Drakul’s men, leaning against a rock with a rifle perched. Drakul dismisses him with a wave of the hand. Watch, he says.

  Too far for sound to carry. But the wolf man’s lips move, he issues an order, evidently. Men come out of the trucks. Spread out. Fogg watches them. Not the white uniforms of the Übermenschen Korps. Not army either.

  Gestapo.

  It is hard to watch them. Their features shift, blur. There is every manner of the change here, on display. For this is what it is, surely. A display, for Fogg’s benefit. Or a challenge, to Drakul. One man is an obese creature, fat seems to ooze from his arms, his legs. His belly contrasts and expands. No. All of it does. Like a toad, inflating.

  Then the one beside him; Fogg recognises him from his dossier, with a start. Blutsauger.

  Years later he will see him again …

  Fogg can feel Drakul’s reaction, can feel his own at the sight of this deformed creature, leathery skin like a bat’s, short ugly wings between his arms and side, as if the skin of his armpits had been hideously stretched, and the long narrow bald head and those dark eyes, a face as crumpled as a newborn baby’s, a name to go with the visage, another Carpathian horror come alive: Blutsauger, blood sucker, and he opens his mouth impossibly wide in a yawn or a grin and there are too many teeth inside, and he licks his lips with a long leathery tongue, Blutsauger, he flaps his wings and grins and sniffs the air as if scenting for blood.

  – Bloody hell, Fogg says.

  The partisans are quiet, watching:

  Another man down below reaches hands into the air. As if searching for something. Drakul whispers, Lie low. Fogg does. There is a movement in the air. The leaves rustle on the trees. The man down below is a tall, pale Scandinavian. Thin blond hair. Eyes like pale blue marbles. Leaves fall down on their heads. As if invisible hands had reached this far up the mountain slope and shaken the trees, grasping, searching for them.

  But withdraw, at last. A short, light-skinned man with Slavic features shapes circles in the air. The air shimmers, firms, becomes elliptical mirrors. Another man is shaggy, like a dog. Turns on all fours. Opens a mouth impossibly wide, teeth coated in shiny saliva.

  – Wolfskommando, someone says, uneasily. The partisans glance at each other. Beside Fogg, Drakul grins without humour. Down below, the wolf man gives a nod. His men go back in their trucks. The wolf man gets back in the jeep. The trucks start their engines, the sound reaches Drakul’s party delayed and magnified. Fogg watches the convoy ride along the mountain pass until it disappears from view.

  Fogg breathes out. Removes the binoculars. What was that about? he says. Drakul grins. Moves from lying to standing up with nothing in between. A piece of shadow. Der Wolfsmann, he is showing off, Drakul says. Fogg doesn’t ask for whose benefit. Looks at Drakul. The Jewish partisan looks back. Understanding between them, like a spark.

  47. SIGHIȘOARA, TRANSYLVANIA 1944

  They enter Sighișoara at the dead of night. A sliver moon, a sickle moon, a blade lighting their way in the dark sky. Stars like holes punched into the dome of the sky with a knife. Sighișoara is a pleasant medieval town. Charming old churches, cobbled streets, the cool clean air of the mountains is beneficial for people suffering from consumption. At least if Baedeker’s anything to go by. The Jews of Sighișoara had been herded over to the ghetto in Cluj, before they were put on the trains. The Gestapo make their headquarters in the Sighișoara citadel. One-time home of Vlad III, Son of the Dragon. Charming medieval citadel, built by Saxons. Castrum Sex, to give it its Latin name. Meaning the six-sided castle.

  The partisans are ghosts in the night. Skulk from shadow to shadow. The streets are deserted, a curfew is in effect, patrols are scarce and the soldiers doing the patrolling bored. Fogg’s value seems to have gone up in the eyes of the partisans. The fog rises from the cobblestones, thickens about them, like milk becoming cream. They pass closed shops, few street lights. The city is quiet with desperation. Drakul flickers from shadow to shadow. He moves like a bat in the night. Fogg does not know what drives him, what makes him go on. A sort of fatalism has taken over Drakul. We will try, he says, with a touch of humour. For you, Mr Fogg of London, we will try to take the citadel.

  A suicide mission. Drakul’s partisans are no match for the Wolfskommando. No sign of life from the citadel but Fogg knows it is far from deserted. Feels the unseen eyes watching from inside. Wonders if, somewhere deep inside himself, Drakul wants to be caught. Longs for an ending. But Fogg is swept along with the plan. Something to bring back to the Old Man. Anything to justify this sojourn to the outer realms of the war, where nothing much happens but for the mass transportation of the Jews.

  Tendrils of fog creep towards the citadel. Gently, gently – do not spook the unseen enemy, make the fog a natural phenomenon. Dark shapes moving over the citadel. Bats, flying without sound. The fog creeps. Drakul and Fogg, watching from the doorway of a bakery. Drakul, pointing wordlessly, first at himself, then at Fogg. His meaning clear. You and I go. The others stay behind.

  The partisans circle the citadel, hiding as best they can, in doorways and staircases, on rooftops, the boy, Pèter, with them. Fogg didn’t get his full story. His dad and uncle shipped to the camps. Mother and two sisters smuggled over the border, hidden in the cart of a Romanian neighbour. Why Pèter was left behind, Fogg doesn’t know. The partisans regard him as their mascot. The boy doesn’t speak much. Seems in awe of Drakul. A distant cousin, somehow. Born after the change: for him, Übermenschen are as natural as gas chambers.

  Fogg walks the short distance to the citadel. Masked by the fog. Drakul flickers into being beside him. Guards on the steps. Conversation in bad German. It’s fucking cold. Stop complaining, Toad, you’re so fat you probably can’t even feel it. A laugh, a grunt in reply. Fogg looks at Drakul. They split up.

  Snatches in the fog. Fogg cuts the throat of the tall Scandinavian, the one with the reaching arms. Soundlessly. Just walks up behind him and does it. An expert now, after all these years. Holds the man, gently, as he falls. Wipes the knife clean on the man’s uniform.

  The curtain of fog parts, momentarily. Fogg sees the corpulent man called Toad. Drakul appearing beside him. Toad opens his mouth to cry out. Reaction kicks in, he inflates, engorged. Drakul pokes him. No. Drakul’s talon like a blade. Punctures the Toad’s skin, ruptures the heart. The man sags, deflates. A second strike to the throat, he gurgles without sound and drops with a soft wet plop. Drakul raises two fingers in a silent salute. Two down. Many more to go.

  The door opens for them. They slip inside.

  48. SIGHIȘOARA, TRANSYLVANIA 1944

  There is an echoey stillness to the vast hall of the citadel. Tendrils of fog drift through the large dark space. Moonlight penetrates through high windows, illuminating ancient tapestries, grotesque paintings. Fogg finds himself staring at a portrait of Vlad the Impaler. A narrow face, pronounced cheekbones, a hawk’s nose, large, piercing eyes. The face dominated by a wide moustache, arched eyebrows. Vlad has long hair that falls over his shoulders. He wears a felt hat crowned with precious stones.

  The painting hangs against the far wall. As he comes closer, Fogg sees holes in the painting, jagged wounds. A throwing knife protrudes from Vlad’s forehead. Beside him, Drakul chuckles, softly, startling Fogg. He can’t ge
t used to the partisan’s way of suddenly appearing.

  A sense of unease overtakes Fogg. Something wrong. The citadel too quiet, the hushed darkness has a sense of unseen eyes watching. Drakul, beside him – Follow me. They walk softly across the stone floor, towards a staircase leading down. Nothing stirs. Drunken laughter suddenly wafts across the space, coming from upstairs, and Fogg freezes. Drakul brushes against him, pushing him, a restlessness overtaking the normally taciturn man.

  Don’t be a hero. That’s what the Old Man told Fogg, when he sent him here. The Bureau has no place in it for heroes. Go, don’t get caught, and bring me back the information I require.

  Fogg shivers. The cold seeps into your bones, your soul. It is worse than the Eastern Front, almost. But no. Nothing was as bad as that. They reach bottom. A heavy metal door set into the wall. Brand new. At odds with its medieval surroundings and yet, strangely, a part of it, too. As if whatever is behind it belongs in a Grimm Brothers’ tale. Fogg looks at Drakul, a question, How do we get in? in his eyes. Drakul pushes the door. It moves, soundlessly. Fogg shakes his head. Motions: Let’s go back, he seems to say. The door should be locked. There should be guards down here. Too easy. Too easy to get in, at any rate. Might not be so easy to get out again.

  Drakul seems to battle with himself. Pushes the door a little more. Darkness beyond. No way to tell what is in there. Fogg, suddenly, has no desire to find out. Mouth dry, rats gnawing his inside. We go back, he says. Now. Begins climbing back up the stairs. Drakul gives in, flickers behind him.

  – Damn and blast and fuck, Fogg says.

  Almost the last thing he says. The hall of the citadel is flooded with sudden light. It burns through Fogg’s eyes, momentarily blinding him. When his eyes adjust, every mote of dust can be discerned in the air – as can the Gestapo men on the higher level, aiming machine guns at Fogg and Drakul. Fogg looks helplessly to the doors to the outside, but more men stand guarding them.