Chapter 7 Photographers in Salzburg - 6

At Peyerbach, Reber jumped out of the one-horse cart.The farmer stopped driving his cart.Reb smiled and nodded at him. "Thank you so much! Hope your grandson comes home soon. I'm sure he will." "My dear boy, may God hear you," answered the old farmer. Leiber walked along the winding road.Right in front of him and on his right are peaks over 2,000 meters above sea level.Reber no longer wore the British general's clothes and shoes.He sold them, and got, for a little money, a blue shirt and a pair of trousers, which fitted him fairly well; likewise a pair of lace-up boots, though heavy, which fitted him well, except for the one on the right foot. There was a hole several centimeters across the toe of one boot.

He arrived in Reichenau about noon on June 23rd.Early in the morning, he caught a jeep in Vienna.The jeep took him to the square near the Neustadt church, where the war had left its mark.Later, four kilometers away from Neunkirchen, the farmer who drove him gave him a ride in a horse-drawn cart. At that time, both feet were bleeding, but he was still walking. Reichenau is a village.The first family Reber interviewed told him where to find Emma Donning.He walked across a small pasture in the mountains to a house of logs on a stony ground.It looks like this log cabin is quite large and can accommodate several people.The three children, ranging in age from two to six, were all blond and blue-eyed. They sat one by one on the edge of the stone trough in front of the house, obediently resting their hands on their bare knees, motionless. All were disgustingly dirty.The damp, earthy smell of spring was in the air, and there was a whiff of tobacco.Leiber smiled and talked to those children, but they didn't answer anyone, they all looked at him with the same fear.

Reber walked around the farmhouse and finally found the woman.Her body is very plump, and her big, strong hands show thick veins.Reber told her that his name was Reber Michel Klimrod, from Vienna, the son of the lawyer Johann Klimrod.The woman listened and didn't respond at all.With her thick fingers shaped like a spatula, she kept grinding away the hard skin of the corn, and poured the kernels into a soup pot, which was already filled with water, a few potatoes and radishes.Leib stood in front of her, and saw a few strands of grayish-yellow hair scattered on the top of her half-bald head stuck together with sweat.

"You were once a servant at my father's house," said Reber. "I wonder what became of him." She asked Leiber why he came to her.Reber explained that a timber merchant in the street behind the Bohemia Office had sent him here.When she heard this, she thought about it until she had finished grinding two ears of corn, and took up the pot--without Leib's help--carried it into the house and set it on the fire, and then she said: "I never worked for a Mr. Crimson Lord." "But Q is that you worked at his house, in September 1941." For the first time she looked at Reb in the eye.

"You're here for those brats, aren't you?" "No." "You must have come for them. That whore is complaining again. She's been hanging out with Americans all over Vienna, and she's giving me these little bastards for so little money, and asking me to treat them like scumbags." Fengsun takes care of you." At this time, a slight sound of bare feet walking can be heard.Reber turned away.The three little boys just appeared at the door.One had a bruise on his cheekbone, and all three had welts on their legs. "I'm here for them, too," Reber said. "She wanted me to see how they were doing. Now, please do me a favor and answer my questions."

She lowered her eyes first, and said with resentment: "I really want to put some slices of bacon in the soup." "That's what I'm asking you to do," Reber said, his eyes still staring at her. He started asking questions.In September 1941, who made her housekeeper in Klimrod's house?She replied that it was a man named Epoke. "Is this Epoke the owner of this house?" "No." "So, who is Epoke's boss? Who does Epoke take orders from?" She couldn't remember the man's name.Reb smiled and shook his head. "It seems to be called Te... Te... Te..." She said, she really couldn't remember--for a long time, she couldn't remember his name.But she remembered the appearance of that man.He is the boss.

"He was tall and very handsome with blond hair." "Is he in uniform?" "In SS uniform," said the woman. "At least he's a general. He doesn't come around very often." "September 1941, were there any servants in this house who had worked there for a long time? Old servants for many years? For example, a white-haired old man named Anton, who was still there at that time?" ?” "exist." "Where is Anton now, do you know?" "He died," she said, "just before Christmas that year when he was run over by an army truck."

Is there no one left of the old servants? There is no one else.She was employed at the same time as four other servants. "Was it Epoke who hired her?" "yes." She took a piece of bacon from a hook on the roof beam, cut a piece, and after a moment's hesitation, cut another piece. "Cut another slice, please," said Reber, "and let each child have a slice of bacon. I think they could have three or four more potatoes." "How was the furniture furnished the day you first entered Klimrod's house?" She didn't understand Reber's question. "Furniture? Of course there is," she replied in surprise.

"Add some potatoes, please," said Reber, "not too small." "Do you remember that there were a lot of books, thousands of them?" "Yes, I do." "And the paintings, then?" "Yes, there were many, many paintings, if you call them paintings. ; and woolens hanging on the walls; yes, tapestries. And quite a few statues." Reber shifted his position.The last leg of his walk had exhausted what little energy he had left.He was afraid that a look of exhaustion on his face would weaken his standing in dealing with Emma Donen.He went to a darker place.Catch the bacon beam with both hands to make yourself appear taller.

"In that library full of books, there was a little elevator, do you remember?" She has just peeled potatoes.She held a sharp knife in one fleshy hand, her thumb resting on the point, when she paused, frowning, searching her memory. "Something like the elevator that sends Lai? It's hidden behind a board with a picture on it, isn't it?" This "board" is actually the paneling of the alcove. "Yes," Reber said. she remembers.Once, she accidentally opened the cage.No one had ever mentioned the machine to her before, so the discovery came as a shock to her.

"What time is this?" "Before Christmas." "Christmas in 1941?" "right." "Exactly what month was that? "Before December." "November, or October?" "November." It turned out that it was only a few weeks after she was hired.Reber's fingers gripped the beams tighter. "Did you see anything in the elevator?" Without thinking, she replied, "There is a wheelchair." At this moment, if she turned her head to look at Reb, she would see how weak, how pitiful, how hopeless he was.However, she was busy rekindling the embers at the bottom of the pot and adding more firewood.Reb walked out of the house. After a while, Reber called the children.The children walked up to him meekly.Reber undressed them at the sink.Inside the trough was a trickle of clear water, brought in by a pipe made of a hollow tree trunk.Reber bathed them one by one. "Would you please give me a bar of soap?" "What else do you want?" She snorted, and the tone showed that she was calming down. Reber washed the children's wounds and helped them dress as best he could.Then he turned to the woman and said, "When did you quit your job and leave Vienna?" "In February, at the end of the month." "Were the furniture, books, and pictures still there when you left?" On the eve of her departure, they were all removed, she said.That night, three army trucks, driven by the SS, came and emptied everything.At least almost evacuated.The next day, the second-hand dealers in Vienna came again and took the rest of the things away.Except for one table, which stayed because it was too heavy and too big to be lifted out of the door. "Was Epock there?" "He's in charge." "Please tell me what he looks like." She described it.This Epoke was probably one of the three who rushed to Wagner's bookstore after Leiber had been there that day. "And the one you call 'The Chief'? The very tall, handsome man—was he there?" "He came that night in a flagged limousine. He said to Epoke, take this, take that, and told Epke to pay our wages and send us away." "Where is Epak now?" The woman shrugged, and there was a hideous mocking look in her eyes.She blocked the door, and Reb almost had to push her away before re-entering the room.He raised his arms again, stretched out his long fingers, and held the beam. "You're just a little boy," she said, "what am I afraid of you?" Reber laughed. "Of course you are afraid of me," he said softly. "Look at my face, and then look into my eyes, and you will know that you are very much afraid of me. You should be afraid of me." He dropped his hand, In his hand he held the hook that he had pulled out. "Emma Donning, I will come back. It can be a week at least, or two months at most. I will definitely come back, and I will check the children's bodies carefully. If I find another welt, I will cut it Cut off your throat, cut off your hands. Cut off your hands first, then cut your throat... Have you ever talked to that white-haired old man named Anton? The one who was crushed to death by a military truck." She looked at the hook with terrified eyes, and perhaps with even more terrified eyes at the big hand that Reb stretched out in front of her, and nodded. "We don't talk a lot. He doesn't talk much." "I know that," Reber said. "But maybe he told you or another new servant about my father Johann Klimrod. Please recall carefully." The three little boys still sneaked in sneakily, sat down quietly, and the three faces moved their eyes from the hook to the panicked face of the woman, showing no interest in what was happening at the moment.The three little boys in front of them, their demeanor, their silence, and their serious blue eyes, in this farmhouse surrounded by forests, are reminiscent of those German folk tales full of monsters and fairies. "Once," said Emma Donning, "he mentioned a nursing home." "You mean, between July and September 1941, they probably sent my father to that nursing home, don't you?" "right." She said the nursing home was near Linz.Anton had mentioned the name of that place once, but she could no longer recall it.Reber pulled from his shirt a map he had stolen from the British general.He spent a lot of time patiently reading out all the place names on the map within 60 kilometers around Linz, including Mauthausen... …and read until…she said “yes”.The place name is: Hartheim. It turned out to be Hartheim Castle.