Fatherland

these metal stacks; ten thousand webs, spun from paper threads, suspended in the cool air.
    Halder was back within ten minutes. "The SS was in Krakau two weeks ago, all right." He was rubbing his hands uneasily. "Their memory is still vivid. A distinguished visitor. Obergruppenführer Globocnik himself."
    "Everywhere I turn," said March, "Globocnik!"
    "He flew in on a Gestapo jet from Berlin with special authorization from Heydrich, personally signed. He gave them all the shits, apparently. Shouting and swearing. Knew exactly what he was looking for: one file removed. He was out of there by lunchtime."
    Globus, Heydrich, Nebe. March put his hand to his head. It was dizzying. "So here it ends?"
    "Here it ends. Unless you think there might be something else in Stuckart's papers."
    March looked down at the boxes. The contents seemed to him as dead as dust; dead men's bones. The thought of sifting through them anymore was repugnant to him. He needed to breathe some fresh air. "Forget it, Rudi. Thanks."
    Halder stooped to pick up Heydrich's note. "Interesting that the conference was postponed, from December 9 to January 20."
    "What's the significance of that?"
    Halder gave him a pitying look. "Were you really so completely cooped up in that fucking tin can we had to live in? Did the outside world never penetrate? On December 7,1941, you blockhead, the forces of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Hirohito of Japan attacked the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor. On December 11, Germany declared war on the United States. Good reasons to postpone a conference, wouldn't you say?" Halder was grinning, but slowly the grin faded, to be replaced by a more thoughtful expression. "I wonder ..."
    "What?"
    He tapped the paper. "There must have been an original invitation, before this one."
    "So what?"
    "It depends. Sometimes our friends from the Gestapo are not quite as efficient at weeding out embarrassing details as they like to think, especially if they're in a hurry . . ."
    March was already standing in front of the stack of boxes, glancing up and down, his depression lifted. "Which one? Where do we start?"
    "For a conference at that level, Heydrich would have had to have given the participants at least two weeks' notice." Halder looked at his notes. "That would mean Stuckart's office correspondence file for November 1941. Let me see. That should be box twenty-six, I think."
    He joined March in front of the shelves and counted off the boxes until he found the one he wanted. He pulled it down, cradled it. "Don't snatch, Zavi. All in good time. History teaches us patience."
    He knelt, placed the box in front of him, opened it, pulled out an armful of papers. He glanced at each in turn, placing them in a pile to his left. "Invitation to a reception given by the Italian ambassador: boring. Conference organized by Walther Darré at the Agriculture Ministry: very boring . . ."
    He went on like that for perhaps two minutes, with March standing, watching, nervously grinding his fist into his palm. Then suddenly Halder froze. "Oh shit." He read it through again and looked up. "Invitation from Heydrich. Not boring at all, I'm afraid. Not boring at all."

4

    The heavens were in chaos. Nebulae exploded. Comets and meteors rushed across the sky, disappeared for an instant, then detonated against green oceans of cloud.
    Above the Tiergarten, the firework display was nearing its climax. Parachute flares lit up Berlin like an air raid.
    As March waited in his car to turn left onto Unter den Linden, a gang of SA men lurched out in front of him. Two of them, their arms draped around each other, performed a drunken can-can in the beam of the headlights. The others banged on the Volkswagen's bodywork or pressed their faces against the windows—eyes bulging, tongues lolling; grotesque apes. March put the engine into first gear and skidded away. There was a thud as one of the dancers was sent spinning.
    He drove back to Werderscher-Markt. All police leave had been canceled. Every window was ablaze with light. In the foyer, someone hailed him, but March ignored the cry. He clattered down the stairs to the basement.
    Bank vaults and basements and underground storerooms ... I am turning into a troglodyte, thought March; a cave dweller, a recluse; a robber of paper tombs.

    The Gorgon of the Registry was still sitting in her lair. Did she never sleep? He showed her his ID. There were a couple of other detectives at the central desk, leafing in a languid