A Man Without Breath

When the German medical personnel and Soviet nurses on the front desk were done admitting the new arrivals I explained my mission to one of the orderlies. The man listened patiently and then led the way up and through the enormous hospital, which was full of German soldiers who had been wounded during the battle of Smolensk and were still awaiting repatriation to the fatherland. We reached a corridor on the fifth floor where there was not one but several laboratories, and he presented me courteously to a small man wearing a white coat that was a couple of sizes too big for him, as well as mittens and a Soviet tank crewman’s helmet which he snatched off when he saw me standing there. The bow was unctuous, but understandable when dealing with SD officers.

‘Captain Gunther, this is Doctor Batov,’ said the orderly. ‘He’s in charge of the scientific laboratories here at the academy. He speaks German and I’m sure he will be able to assist you.’

When the orderly left us alone, Batov looked sheepishly at the tanker’s helmet. ‘This ridiculous hat, it keeps the head warm,’ he explained. ‘It’s cold in this hospital.’

‘I noticed that, sir.’

‘The boilers are coal-fired,’ he said, ‘and there’s not so much coal about for things like heating a hospital. There’s not much coal around for anything.’

I offered him a cigarette and he took one and tucked it behind his ear. I lit one myself and looked around. The lab was reasonably well equipped for the purposes of instructing Russian medical students; there were a couple of work benches with gas taps, burners, chemical hoods, balances, flasks, and several stereo microscopes.

‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.

‘I was hoping I might be able to use one of your stereo microscopes for a while,’ I said.

‘Yes, of course,’ he said, ushering me towards the instrument. ‘Are you a scientist, captain?’

‘No, sir. I’m a policeman. From Berlin. Before the war we’d just started using stereo microscopes in ballistics work. To identify and match bullets from the bodies of murder victims.’

Batov paused by the stereo microscope and switched on a light beside it. ‘And do you have a bullet you wish to examine now, captain?’

‘No. It’s some typewritten papers I wanted to take a look at. The paper got damp and some of the words are hard to read.’ I paused, wondering how much I could tell him. ‘Actually, it’s more complicated than that. These papers have been exposed to cadaveric fluid. From a decaying body. They were inside a boot in which the human leg wearing it had disintegrated down to the bone.’

Batov nodded. ‘May I see?’

I showed him the papers.

‘Even with a stereo microscope this will be difficult,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘Best of all would be to use infrared rays, but unfortunately we’re not equipped with that kind of advanced technology here at the Academy. Perhaps it would be better to have them treated in Berlin after all.’

‘I have good reasons for preferring to see what can be achieved here right now in Smolensk.’

‘Then you’ll probably need to wash these documents with chloroform or xylol,’ he said. ‘I could do this for you, if you liked.’

‘Yes. I’d be grateful if you could. Thanks.’

‘But may I ask, exactly what are you hoping to achieve?’

‘If nothing else, I’d like to be able to find out what language the papers are written in.’

‘Well, we can treat one sheet of paper, perhaps, and see how that works.’

Batov went to look for some chemicals and then started to wash one of the pages; while he worked I sat and smoked a cigarette and dreamed that I was back in Berlin, having dinner with Renata at the Adlon Hotel. Not that we ever did have dinner at the Adlon, but it wouldn’t have been much of a daydream if any of it had been remotely possible.

When Batov had finished cleaning the page he dried it carefully, flattened the paper with a sheet of glass and then arranged the page underneath the prism of the microscope.

I drew an electric light a little closer and looked through the eyepieces while I adjusted the zoom control. A blurred word moved into focus. The alphabet wasn’t Cyrillic and the words weren’t written in German.

‘What’s the Russian word for soldier?’ I asked Batov.

‘Soldat.’

‘I thought so. Zolnierz. That’s the Polish word for soldier. Here’s another. Wywiadu. No idea what that means.’

‘It means intelligence,’ said Batov.

‘Does it?’

‘Yes. My wife was Ukrainian-Polish, sir, from the Subcarpathian province. She studied medicine here before the war.’

‘Was?’

‘She’s dead now.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, doctor.’

‘Polish.’ Batov paused and then added. ‘The language on the document. That’s a relief.’

I looked up from the eyepieces. ‘Why is that?’

‘If it’s in Polish it means I can offer to help you,’ explained Batov. ‘If it was in Russian – well, I could hardly betray my own country to the enemy, now could I?’

I smiled. ‘No, I suppose not.’

He pointed at the stereo microscope. ‘May I have a look?’

‘Be my guest.’