As the months passed by, the cloud grew darker. The news of job promotions elsewhere and his desire to work in other areas amplified his growing dissatisfaction with his own role, which had diverged into tedium, and the situation with Monique, even more so, the marriage pointless and regrettable now.
She had acted differently toward him after their return from Germany. The subject of Georg had completely ceased between them from that point forward, and neither did she broach what had occurred, but in small ways the experience seemed to empower her. She showed indifference to the things he spoke about and had become slower to perform the household tasks required of her. But what bothered him most was that the event was another weight on the chain that bound them, in that any knowledge of it outside their tiny river circle would shame him, exposing the lies inside their marriage.
He had just spent the day interrogating several Italian resistance members who had been caught and transferred to a concentration camp. Arriving at the cell, he had found that they had pissed on the floor in front of the door. He had conducted an interrogation in the rooms below to get away from the smell. He was meant only to ask them questions, but they had answered haughtily; they had laughed, and then one of them had spat on him. The prisoner was set upon by several enforcers in the room, but it was not enough. On top of the previous events, Monique, Georg, his sister, and the thankless work, the prisoner’s spitting had been the final offense.
Erich had picked up a metal rod and beaten the prisoner so hard repeatedly that the man fell unconscious. Not that these disciplines hadn’t been performed before; it was just that Erich had not had to bear the physical side of things. He noticed a trace of blood on his cuff when he took off his coat on arrival at the apartment he and Monique shared.
After a long drive home, he found the apartment in darkness. There were no smells from the kitchen. He had not told her he would be home, but his mother always had meals ready for his father regardless. Monique, in contrast, had grown to be useless as a housewife; there was no point to her being here.
She arrived sometime later, and he was waiting for her.
“Where were you?” he asked.
“Just walking,” she said, trying to hide the shock of finding him home. She looked slightly repulsed.
“You have been looking for your father again, haven’t you?”
She switched on the light in the kitchen.
“What does it matter?” she said nonchalantly. She did not give him the courtesy of looking at him. She was like Claudine. Showing her contempt, openly then. And the thought of his sister brought even more feelings of rancor to the surface.
She turned to look at his hand that had reached out to grip her arm, before looking up at his eyes with both alarm and disgust.
“What are you doing?” she said. “Let me go.”
You must control your wife, Erich, before she controls you, his mother had advised shortly after his wedding. She had seen Monique’s flaws, like he had.
He pushed Monique roughly back on the couch. He lifted her skirt, but she slapped him, and his return slap caused her to cease the fight, to look at him differently. It wasn’t arrogance now. The look was more fearful.
“Leave me!” she said. “You can’t be doing this.”
“I know that you are a slut. That you spread yourself halfway across Vienna and Berlin to anyone who looks your way.”
“Stop it!” she said, and pushed at his chest. “This isn’t part of the arrangement.”
“Why now would you fight your husband?” he said breathlessly from the effort of holding her. “It may as well be this way. It may as well be your duty also.”
“Erich,” she said in a much softer tone. She was becoming subdued, more like she should have been all this time. “This is not what . . .”
But he ignored her and undid his zip, still with his jacket on, still with the uniform that helped suppress those who needed it. Consummation at least would validate their marriage and reduce the power Monique seemed to think she had. She winced as he pushed hard into her, and it was over quickly as she lay there, tears streaming from the sides of closed eyes. He looked down, almost afraid to see what he had done. There was blood on the skirt beneath her, and only then did he return to some semblance of his usual self.
Feelings of revulsion had replaced the anger, and he left for the bathroom to wash her from him. When he came out, she was in the kitchen. She had her back to him. It had to be like this, he thought, but not forever. Time would change things; he knew that and counted on it.
And the only way he could remove the disgust, the self-loathing, was to atone in other ways. He would take vengeance, each act, each interrogation worse than the previous to block out the memory, to create more from which he could draw from to forget Georg, Monique, to forget the past.
He did not return for a month, taking an apartment near the main camp, his job taking him often to northern Italy where partisans had become more active, and they needed someone qualified to take control of the situation. One of the senior officers stationed in Italy had been injured in an attempted ambush. He was in the hospital and would likely recover, but not for some time. Erich was asked to fill the position, which would eventually become permanent.
He was taken by plane and then by car. On the way he was handed the file of information. From a list of names and details, the person he was asked to interview was a supporter of the newly formed Italian guards, or Black Brigades, who patrolled the streets. Erich did not particularly like this group. They were not orderly and organized like the SS had become. The group was made up of members of the police, veterans, and fascist loyalists, and they seldom supplied any important information. Still, they were at least controlling northern Italy to some degree, which then, more than any other time, needed stricter measures, a greater show of force to side with Germany.
The one-legged man, Enzo Silvestri called into the Gestapo headquarters based in Verona, with information that he wished only to give to Erich Steiner, whom he had met once before at a government function, or to someone else as senior. Erich declined to meet him at the Gestapo police station; instead he would pay a visit to Enzo’s house to interview him there, as well as the whole family. Erich had found that it was sometimes better to see their surroundings, to gain a better truth, to see through duplicity, tricks, or lies.
The file told him that Enzo had a wife, Serafina, a son, Beppe, who had been killed fighting in Africa, and a niece, Teresa Della Bosca, who was living with him.
An interpreter accompanied Erich to the house, one of the better ones on the street. They had come from money. They owned shops, and they had helped pay for supplies for the Brigades in Verona. Erich established straightaway that they were loyal. But he still had to witness this for himself.
An offer of refreshment by Serafina was declined. Erich never treated such interviews as social, but his manner was courteous and did not fit that of an interrogator. Serafina said she was thrilled by his visit, but a constant flutter of her hands told him that she was nervous also. The sight of SS, especially senior ones, caused anxiety even among those most loyal.
“What is it that you have to tell me?” Erich asked.
“I have the address of someone you might be interested in. A man named Conti Fiore,” said Enzo. “I know that he had something to do with the bomb that exploded on the road to Verona.”
“And how did you come by this?”
“My niece has been working at his café, and she was asked to place several crates of food in the back of a delivery van. A cover sheet inside the van had slipped away from some boxes, exposing what was underneath. She noticed there was a box marked as explosives, along with several guns, and as she walked away, she heard the word ‘ambush’ whispered between the owner and the driver. She mentioned it to her aunt that day, but it was not until we heard about the explosion later that we made the connection. I believe that Conti Fiore is involved in the resistance.”