Fatherland

crossed the Oder. The gray river stretched on either side of the high steel bridge. A pair of barges crossed in the center of the slow-moving water and hooted a loud good morning to each other.
    The Oder: Germany's natural frontier with Poland. Except there was no longer any frontier; there was no Poland.
    March stared straight ahead. This was the road down which the Wehrmacht's Tenth Army had rolled in September 1939. In his mind, he saw again the old newsreels: the horse-drawn artillery, the Panzers, the marching troops . . . Victory had seemed so easy. How they had cheered!
    There was an exit sign to Gleiwitz, the town where the war had started.
    Jaeger was moaning. "I'm shattered, Zavi. I can't drive much longer."
    March said, "Not far now."
    He thought of Globus. "There's nothing there anymore, not even a brick. Nobody will ever believe it. And shall I tell you something? Part of you can't believe it either." That had been his worst moment—because it was true.
    A Totenburg —a Citadel of the Dead—stood on a bare hilltop not far from the road: four granite towers, fifty meters high, set in a square, enclosing a bronze obelisk. For a moment as they passed, the weak sun glinted off the metal, like a reflecting mirror. There were dozens of such tumuli between here and the Urals—imperishable memorials to the Germans who had died—were dying, would die—for the conquest of the East. Beyond Silesia, across the steppes, the Autobahnen were built on ridges to keep them clear of the winter's snows—deserted highways ceaselessly swept by the wind ...
    They drove for another twenty kilometers, past the belching factory chimneys of Kattowitz, and then March told Jaeger to leave the autobahn.
    He can see her in his mind.

    She's checking out of the hotel She says to the receptionist, "You're sure there've been no messages?" The receptionist smiles. "None, Fräulein." She has asked a dozen times. A porter offers to help her with her luggage, but she refuses. She sits in the car overlooking the river, reading again the letter she found hidden in her case. "Here's the key to the vault, my darling. Make sure she sees the light one day . . "A minute passes. Another. Another. She keeps looking north, toward the direction from which he should come.
    At last she checks her watch. Then she nods slowly, switches on the engine and turns right onto the quiet road.
    * * * *

    Now they were passing through industrialized countryside: brown fields bordered by straggling hedgerows; whitish grass; black slopes of coal waste; the wooden towers of old mine shafts with ghostly spinning wheels, like the skeletons of windmills.
    "What a shithole," said Jaeger. "What happens here?"
    The road ran beside a railway track, then crossed a river. Rafts of rubbery scum drifted along the banks. They were directly downwind of Kattowitz. The air stank of chemicals and coal dust. The sky here really was sulfur yellow, the sun an orange disc in the smog.
    They dipped, went through a blackened railway bridge, then over a rail crossing. Close, now . . . March tried to remember Luther's crude sketch map.
    They reached a junction. He hesitated.
    "Turn right."
    Past corrugated iron sheds, scraps of trees, rattling over more steel tracks .. .
    He recognized a disused rail line. "Stop!"
    Jaeger braked.
    "This is it. You can turn off the engine."
    Such silence. Not even a bird call.
    Jaeger looked around with distaste at the narrow road, the barren fields, the distant trees. A wasteland. "But we're in the middle of nowhere!"
    "What time is it?"
    "Just after nine."
    "Turn on the radio."
    "What is this? You want a little music? The Merry Widow , perhaps?"
    "Just turn it on."
    "Which channel?"
    "The channel doesn't matter. If it's nine they'll all sound the same."
    Jaeger pressed a switch, turned a dial. A noise like an ocean breaking on a rocky shore. As he scanned the frequencies the noise was lost, came back, was lost and then
    came back at full strength: not the ocean, but a million human voices raised in acclamation.
    "Take out your handcuffs, Max. That's it. Give me the key. Now attach yourself to the wheel. I'm sorry, Max."
    "Oh, Zavi. . ."
    "Here he comes!" shouted the commentator. "I can see him! Here he comes!"
    He had been walking for a little over five minutes and had almost reached the birch woods when he heard the helicopter. He looked back a kilometer, past the waving grass, along the overgrown tracks. The Mercedes had been joined on the road by