A Small Death in Lisbon. Robert Thomas Wilson

pink-faced as he had been at fourteen, nodded keenly through the smoke of his cigar which Hanke was lighting for him.

      ‘I didn’t know the Jews were involved in the Dutch tobacco industry,’ said Felsen.

      ‘The Jews are everywhere,’ said Koch.

      ‘You don’t smoke your own cigars?’ asked Brigadeführer Fischer.

      ‘After dinner,’ said Felsen. ‘Only cigarettes before. Turkish. Would you like to try one?’

      ‘I don’t smoke cigarettes.’

      Koch looked at his lit cigar and felt foolish. He saw Felsen’s cigarette case on the table.

      ‘May I?’ he said, picking it up and opening it. The shop’s name was stamped on the inside. ‘Samuel Stern, you see, the Jews are everywhere.’

      ‘The Jews have been with us for centuries,’ said Felsen.

      ‘So was Samuel Stern until Kristallnacht,’ said Koch, sitting back satisfied, synchronizing a nod with Hanke. ‘They weaken us every hour they remain in the Reich.’

      ‘Weaken us?’ said Felsen, thinking this sounded like something verbatim from Julius Streicher’s rag, Der Stürmer. ‘They don’t weaken me.’

      ‘What are you implying, Herr Felsen?’ said Koch, cheeks reddening.

      ‘I’m not implying anything, Herr Koch. I was merely saying that I have not experienced any weakening of my position, my business, or my social life as a result of the Jews.’

      ‘It is quite possible you have been . . .’

      ‘And as for the Reich, we have overrun most of Europe lately which hardly . . .’

      ‘. . . possible you have been unaware,’ finished Koch shouting him down.

      The double doors to the mess thumped open and a tall, heavy man took three strides into the room. Koch shot off his chair. The Brigadeführers all stood up. SS-Gruppenführer Lehrer flicked his wrist at waist height.

      ‘Heil Hitler,’ he said. ‘Bring me a brandy. Vintage.’

      The Brigadeführers and Koch responded with full salutes. Felsen eased himself slowly out of his chair. The mess waiter whispered something to the dark, lowered head of the Gruppenführer.

      ‘Well, bring me a brandy in the dining room then,’ he shouted.

      They went straight into dinner, Lehrer fuming because he’d wanted to stand in front of the fire, warming his arse, with a brandy or two.

      Koch and Felsen sat on either side of Lehrer at the dinner. Over a nasty green soup Hanke asked Felsen about his father. The question Felsen had been waiting for.

      ‘He was killed by a pig in 1924,’ said Felsen.

      Lehrer slurped his soup loudly.

      Sometimes he used a pig, other times a ram. What he didn’t do was tell the truth, which was that as a fifteen-year-old, Klaus Felsen had found his father hanging from a beam in the barn.

      ‘A pig?’ asked Hanke. ‘A wild boar?’

      ‘No, no, a domestic pig. He slipped over in the pen and was trampled to death by a sow.’

      ‘And you took over the farm?’

      ‘Perhaps you know this already, Herr Brigadeführer. I worked that farm for eight years until my mother died. Then I sold it and joined the Führer’s economic miracle and I’ve never looked back. It’s not something I enjoy doing.’

      Hanke sat back after that, shoulder to shoulder with his protégé who smiled pinkly. Lehrer slurped on. He knew it all anyway. Except for the pig, of course. That had been interesting, not true, but interesting.

      The soup bowls were removed and replaced by plates of overcooked pork with boiled potatoes and a sludge of red cabbage. Lehrer only ate it for something to do while Koch gave him the party line. He shovelled food faster and faster into his face. In a momentary lull he leaned over to Felsen and said:

      ‘Not married, Herr Felsen?’

      ‘No, Herr Gruppenführer.’

      ‘I’ve heard,’ he said, nibbling at a hangnail, ‘that you have a reputation with women.’

      ‘Do I?’

      ‘How does a man who’s never been south of the Pyrenees speak Portuguese?’ asked Lehrer, valuing his earlobe with thumb and finger. ‘And don’t tell me that that’s what they’re teaching you down in Swabia these days.’

      Lehrer arched his eyebrows in a parody of innocence. Felsen realized that Susana Lopes had moved in higher circles than even he’d known about.

      ‘I used to go riding with a Brazilian around the Havel,’ he lied, and Lehrer’s stomach grunted.

      ‘Horses?’ he asked.

      After dinner they moved into an adjoining room. They each bought a hundred RM of chips and sat at a green baize table. The waiters moved a wooden trolley with drinks and glasses alongside, served brandies and left. Lehrer loosened off his tunic and drew on the cigar Felsen had given him, blowing the smoke on to the ember.

      The light above the table, stratified by smoke, lit only the players’ faces. Koch, even pinker now with the wine and brandy. Hanke with hooded unreadable eyes, the shadow of his dark beard already showing through. Fischer with pouches under his eyes and his skin taut and scraped raw as if he’d been half the night in a blizzard. Wolff, blonde and blue-eyed, impossibly young for a Brigadeführer, in need of a duelling scar to lend experience to the face. And Lehrer, the big man, with jowls fully formed, hair grey on the wings, dark eyes, wet and glistening with the anticipation of joy and further corruption. If Eva had been there, thought Felsen, she’d have told him that this was a man who liked to spank.

      They played. Felsen lost consistently. He dumped hands which had any excitement in them and bluffed with no will to back it up. Koch lost flamboyantly. They both bought more chips and transferred them to the SS officers who showed no inclination for the process to stop.

      Then Felsen started to win. There were comments about the cards turning. Hanke and Fischer were quickly burned out. Koch was stripped clean, going down for 1600 RM. Felsen concentrated on Wolff and began to lose to the man consistently on bluffs. Felsen was down to 500 RM when Lehrer cleaned Wolff out with four of a kind to a full house. Wolff looked as if he’d been speared to his chair. Lehrer was enormous behind his stacks of chips.

      ‘You might wish to replenish your stocks if you want to take me on,’ said Lehrer. Felsen poured himself a brandy and sucked on his cigar. Lehrer beamed. Felsen reached into his pocket and took out 2000 RM.

      ‘Will that be enough?’ he asked and Lehrer licked his lips.

      They played for an hour with Lehrer, now stripped to his shirt, losing lightly. Wolff, out of the light, watched the game with the intensity of a falcon. Hanke and Koch colluded on the sofa while Fischer slept noisily.

      Just after 1.30 a.m. Lehrer declined to draw on a hand. Felsen thought for a full three minutes and drew two which he looked at and laid face-down on the table. He moved 200 RM into the centre of the table. Lehrer matched him and raised him 400 RM. Felsen likewise matched and raised. They stopped and checked each other. Lehrer was trying to find the light, the narrow crack, the hairline fissure that was all he needed. Felsen knew then that his strongest card wasn’t face-down on the table in front of him and allowed himself a tiny smile in the pit of his stomach. It was enough for Lehrer who matched Felsen and raised him 1000 RM. Felsen moved his remaining 500 RM into the centre and drew a block of 5000 RM out of his pocket and threw it on top.

      Wolff was up to his chest at the table burning holes in the green baize. Hanke and Koch shut up. Fischer stopped snoring.

      Lehrer smiled and drummed the table with his fingers. He asked for a pen and paper. He pushed his remaining 2500