A Quiet Flame

I knew that Marcello would be on duty in the archivo and, as I came through the swing doors, I saw him in his usual position, behind the main desk. This was completely circular, and with its Argentine flag and sidearmed military officers, it looked more like a defensive redoubt than a records division. Except that Marcello hardly resembled anything military in a uniform that fitted him only where it gripped him. Whenever I saw him, he always reminded me of one of those baby-faced boy soldiers drafted to defend Hitler’s bunker against the Red Army during the fall of Berlin.

I returned the updated files on Carl Vaernet and Pedro Olmos and asked for the file on Helmut Gregor. Marcello took the returned files, checked the libros marrones for Helmut Gregor, and then dispatched one of the junior officers to go and retrieve it from the shelves. I watched as the officer started to wind the handwheel, like a man opening a lock gate, until the relevant shelf had moved far along an invisible track to permit his ingress.

“Tell me more about your A Index,” said Marcello, who was of Italian-Argentine origin.

“All right,” I said, hoping that I might waltz him in the direction I wanted. “There were three kinds of cards. In Group One, all cards had a red mark, indicating an enemy of the state. In Group Two, a blue mark, indicating someone to be arrested in time of national emergency. And in Group Three, a green mark, indicating people who were subject to surveillance at all times. All these marks were on the left side of the card. On the right side of the card, a second color mark indicated a Communist, someone suspected of being in the Resistance, a Jew, a Jehovah’s Witness, a homosexual, a Freemason, and so on. The whole index was updated twice a year. At the beginning and at the end of the summer. Our busiest time. Himmler insisted on it.”

“Fascinating,” said Marcello.

“Informers had special files. And so did agents. But all of these files were completely separate from those held by the Abwehr—German military intelligence.”

“You mean they didn’t share intelligence?”

“Absolutely not. They hated each other.”

Now that I’d danced with him, I figured it was time to make my move.

“Do you have a file on a Jewish couple called the Yagubskys?” I asked innocently.

Marcello removed the heavy brown-leather-bound ledger from the curving shelf behind him and consulted it with a frequently licked forefinger. He must have licked it a thousand times every day, and I was surprised it wasn’t worn away, like a stick of salt. A minute or so later, he was shaking his head. “Nothing, I’m afraid.”

I told him some more. Made up stuff about how Heydrich had planned to build a huge, switch-programmed electronic machine to deliver the same information as the wheel of fortune by teleprinter paper tape, and in a tenth of the time. I let Marcello ooh and aah about that for a while before I asked him if I could see the files relating to Directive 11.

Marcello didn’t consult his brown books before answering; and he flinched a little, as if it bothered him that he was about to fail me again.

“No, we’ve got nothing about that, either,” he explained. “Files like that aren’t kept here. Not anymore. All files relating to the Argentine Immigration Service were removed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about a year ago. And I believe they were put in storage.”

“Oh? Where?”

“At the old Hotel de Inmigrantes. It’s on the north dock, on the other side of the Avenida Eduardo Madero. It was constructed at the beginning of the century to deal with the huge number of immigrants coming here to Argentina. Rather like Ellis Island, in New York. The place is more or less derelict now. Even the rats stay clear of it. I believe there’s just a skeleton staff that works there. I haven’t been there myself, but one of the other ORs helped to move some cabinets there and said it was all a bit primitive. If you were looking for something there, it would probably be best to go through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

I shook my head. “It’s really not that important,” I said.

I DROVE to President Perón Station, parked my car, and found a telephone. I called the number Anna Yagubsky had given me. An old man answered, his voice full of suspicion. I guessed it was her father. When I gave him my name, he started to ask a lot of questions, none of which I could have answered even if I’d wanted to.

“Listen, Señor Yagubsky, I’d love to talk awhile with you, only I’m a little pressed for time right now. So would you mind just putting your questions on hold and fetching your daughter to the phone?”

“There’s no need to be rude about it,” he said.

“As a matter of fact, I was trying very hard not to be rude about it.”

“I’m amazed that you have any clients at all, Señor Hausner, if this is how you treat them.”

“Clients? Uh-huh. Exactly what did your daughter tell you about me, Señor Yagubsky?”

“That you’re a private detective. And that she hired you to find my brother.”