The Linz Tattoo by Nicholas Guild Page B

glancing
up at that enormous and angry man with an expression of great
self-pity. “Mr. Christiansen, finding the Colonel is not the
problem. If you would be so kind as to inquire if the kitchen would
still be willing to send up something in the way of dinner, I will
tell you precisely where you can find him. Nothing would give me
greater pleasure.”
    . . . . .
    A quarter of an hour later a waiter arrived,
pushing a wing table covered with an immaculate white cloth. When
he had left there was a place setting for one, complete with a
crystal water glass and a small arrangement of flowers. The meal
consisted of melon, cold roast lamb, fennel hearts, sautéed
potatoes, apricot mousse, and coffee. Leivick hadn’t seen anything
quite like it in nearly ten years.
    “I trust you weren’t kidding about Hagemann,”
Christiansen said as he sat down in his chair to watch Leivick
eat.
    “No, I wasn’t kidding.”
    “Then?”
    Having killed the first big urge, Leivick
felt able to pause for a moment and pour himself a cup of
coffee.
    “He’s in Syria just now.” He looked up,
smiling kindly at Christiansen, for whom at that particular moment
he harbored only the warmest feelings. “He stays at the Hotel
President Kuwatly in Damascus, in a suite on the top floor. In
another week he will travel to Spain, where he owns a house, but in
either case you would merely be throwing your life away if you
attempted to kill him. He’s very well guarded by his own people and
in both countries he enjoys the protection of the
government—informally, but none the less impenetrably. As you see,
however, locating him hasn’t been our difficulty.
    It was encouraging, if perhaps a trifle
uncomfortable, to know that at least be had managed to secure
Christiansen’s undivided attention. In his vast, almost morbid
stillness, the man had a way of concentrating himself, of seeming
to focus his will like sunlight through a lens, so that one had the
sense that every corner of one’s mind was being opened to that
merciless white glare.
    But Leivick wasn’t really bothered. Within
limits, he was prepared to be candid—he would have to be, or they
could end by having to fight Christiansen as well as the Nazis and
the Syrians. He was not the sort of man anyone wanted for an
enemy.
    “What we need to do is to lure him out,”
Leivick went on slowly, filtering a teaspoon of sugar into his
coffee. “I have one or two pointed questions I should like to put
to the Colonel, and if he could be gotten away from his bodyguard
for a while he might be persuaded to answer them. After that, you
could kill him with my blessing. My government—when, in a few
months, we have a government, and when the Arabs give us a moment
in which to catch our breath—my government would probably give you
a medal for killing Hagemann. He is more our enemy now than ever,
and he has had a long and gaudy career as an anti-Semite.”
    “You can keep your medal, but maybe you’d
better tell me why it’s so important to keep Hagemann alive long
enough to answer questions. What questions?”
    Christiansen closed and opened his eyes with
almost deathlike slowness. His enormous hands were folded together
in his lap—he seemed indifferent to everything. It suddenly
occurred to Leivick that this was a man who understood he was
acting out his part in a tragedy.
    “Mr. Christiansen, fair is fair.” Leivick
smiled wearily. The rest seemed to him inevitable, words rehearsed
many times already. He wondered why Christiansen didn’t see even
then that the thing was settled. “I have answered your first
question—you know now why we’ve taken such an interest in you. Now
you answer mine. What have you been looking for in the case
histories of our surviving remnant? What do you expect to find
among the DPs?”
    The silence was almost a third presence in
the room. Life, hope, even the small, still hum of one’s own mind
seemed to have stopped for good and all. And then, for no