She just smiled more knowingly. 'And will you be in charge of those Germans, Kapitn?'

'In a nominal sense, yes. I'll be visiting the building occasionally, if that's what you mean.'

Mrs Kosilewski uncrossed her long legs, crossed them the other way, rubbed her hand along her thigh to wipe ash off the tight dress, then pouted her painted lips to exhale more smoke rings. Ernst, now almost dizzy with desire, could hardly take his eyes off her.

'Then why send me away?' she asked, her voice shivering through him. 'Surely I would be of better use to you here to attend to the house, which I've done so well so far, and look after the Germans when they arrive.'

'And why should I be concerned with that, Frau Kosilewski?'

'Because if I was here to look after the house, my dear Kapitn, then I could also look after you.'

Her dark gaze was steady, if obscured by the cigarette smoke, and he saw the painted pout of her lips turning into a broader smile. He hadn't possessed a woman for months and was reminded of that bitter fact as she leaned across her raised knee, drawing his gaze to her firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He felt breathless, almost choked by his rising l.u.s.t, and knew he could not resist her.

'Your soldiers have cleared out the top floor,' she said, almost whispering. 'They'll soon be leaving, mein Kapitn.'

'We have at least five minutes,' Ernst replied. 'I think that should suffice for now.'

He walked across the attic, closed and bolted the door, and by the time he had turned back to Frau Kosilewski, she was already undressing.

The spoils of war, Ernst thought grimly.

He went back there a lot. When not on duty, he practically lived there. He had married Ingrid for love, then cheated on her and been cheated by her. Since then, having also betrayed the values he held most dear, he found that he could temporarily regain his lost pride in the bodies of hardened women. He a.s.sumed that Kryzystina was one of those, a woman seasoned by bad experiences, and he was thrilled by the knowledge that she was buying her freedom with her body, selling herself for salvation. She certainly knew how to do it well she had the s.e.xual repertoire of a wh.o.r.e and it helped him pa.s.s the distress of those nights that his frustrations made restless.

'No,' she told him, 'I'm not a wh.o.r.e, but I want to survive, and for a woman living alone in a city ruled by a conquering army, that isn't easy. I was born on a farm near Dabrova, to barbarously ignorant peasants, and my father treated me like a beast of burden for all of my days there. I was beaten regularly, often starved as punishment, and eventually abused s.e.xually by him, roughly and often. One day I stabbed him with a bread knife not fatally, but in the stomach then I fled for good. I was sixteen years old and soon taken in by a gang of gypsies. The man who picked me, who naturally took his pleasure with me, soon started selling me to other men he was as primitive as my father so, a year later, when we were camped in a village near Cracow, I fled to the city, obtained work in a garment factory, attracted the eye of my boss, a decent man, and became his wife when I was twenty. We had a good life for eight years, but he died four years ago. His family inherited all his wealth and I got this house. As I couldn't afford its upkeep, I moved into the attic, let out the rest of the rooms, and was just getting back on my feet when Germany invaded Poland and you, my handsome Kapitn, came to requisition it for your fellow countrymen. Don't call me a wh.o.r.e because I offered myself to you. You know what the alternative was.'

They were naked in bed, which was still in the grand attic, both sweat-slicked from the ardours of a love that had little love in it. Ernst was stirred by the sight of her heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s, bruised lips, and dishevelled hair, and so slid his hand back between her thighs to find her still wet. 'Not all women would sell themselves for a house,' he said. 'Some have more st.u.r.dy principles.'

She glanced sceptically at him, then shook her head on the soaked pillow and chuckled deeply, sardonically. 'Just for my house?' she said. 'I think you know better than that, Ernst. I didn't just want to remain in this house: I also wanted to stay alive. And I think we both know, my pretty, that most of the people moved out of here were not destined for a very lengthy future.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'I think you do, Ernst. You know as well as I do that Hitler is already transforming Poland into a ma.s.sive killing ground and that the planned extermination of the Jews is an open secret among your highranking officers.'

Ernst grinned and slipped his fingers inside her, making her sigh. 'What a bright girl you are, Kryzystina,' he said. 'And how did you know all that?'

'I know because some of the high-ranking officers who shared my bed before you came here told me so. I also know because it's hard to keep secret the fact that at least once a week the Central Station is packed with Jews being moved out to an unknown destination, but one widely believed to be unpleasant.'

Ernst was arousing himself by playing with her. 'Very clever, my Polish pet.'

Kryzystina sighed and turned into him, to throw one long, smooth leg over him and let him have more of her. 'And don't we all live in terror,' she whispered into his ear, 'of the so-called house-cleaning, or murder, of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Polish intellectuals and those of a similar cla.s.s? Could I risk that, my pretty one?' Her tongue slipped into his ear, her teeth nibbled his earlobe, and her hand slid down his sweating body to take hold of him and guide him into her. 'So why did you clear out this house?' she whispered. 'And all the other Polish houses? Not just to rehouse us, my saviour, as you slyly suggest, but to move us to Majdanek or Auschwitz, from where we would not return. Can you call me a wh.o.r.e because I choose you instead of a camp? I think not, my sweet one.'

They made love like two animals that day and many others and Ernst dwelt on what she had said, thought of Himmler and Wilson, and realized that what they were doing had the grandeur of evil. In accepting this fact, he lost his shame and replaced it with pride, plunging himself into his work for Projekt Saucer with renewed vigour. He planned the roundups of Poles and Jews, led the raids on their streets and ghettoes, and divided them into groups on the platforms of Central Station, right or left, life or death. Those chosen for death would not die easily first they would be used as experimental fodder and those blessed with the gift of life would work as slaves for the Third Reich in the multiplying underground factories where Himmler, with the aid of the icy American, Wilson, was creating the weapons that would ensure that the New Order would eventually conquer the world.

Projekt Saucer was at the heart of this great endeavour and, he, the once-rejected Ernst Stoll, was an important part of it.

Yet he still felt frustrated.

'I missed the blitzkreig,' he explained to Kryzystina. 'It was my life's great disappointment. When our army smashed through this d.a.m.ned country, when we destroyed your air force, when the Battle for the Corridor ended and your whole army was routed, I was still an administrator at k.u.mmersdorf, south of Berlin. Now our troops are preparing to follow the Panzer divisions into Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg, then on to France and Paris itself. But instead of going with them, I'm stuck here, in this Polish cesspit, a shepherd of Jews and other subhumans, a man cleaning out vermin.'

'You're still a soldier,' Kryzystina reminded him.

'No, I'm not. I'm a policeman.'

'You take it all too seriously,' she told him. 'Come and take me instead!'

Ernst needed little encouragement.

Because he did not like his work and detested Cracow and its inhabitants, he performed his duties mechanically, efficiently, not thinking too deeply about it, and otherwise vented his frustrations by confiding in Kryzystina. As there were few places to go in Cracow, he never saw her outside the attic, but he fed her hunger for expensive presents, brought her unauthorized food, wine and cigarettes, and when not trading sardonic putdowns with her, unburdened himself of his angst.

'I'm not a soldier,' he insisted, repeating his most common complaint. 'I should be on the road to Paris with the fighting troops, but instead I am here, in this miserable Polish city, arresting people by the hundreds and moving them on to the camps. It's my duty to do this and I do it well, but I was cut out for other things.'

'Engineering?'

'Rocket engineering. That's what I was going to do. Instead, I became a supervisor at the research centre at k.u.mmersdorf, spying on my fellow Germans, an old Italian and an illegal American, whose genius put me to shame, though his ruthlessness shocked me. My G.o.d, what a monster!'

'An American?' Kryzystina asked him, surprised, as her nimble fingers played in his pubic hair. 'An American is working for the Third Reich?'

'Yes,' Ernst replied. 'In secret. He has a false German pa.s.sport. He cares for nothing but his work the construction of a saucer-shaped aircraft and since that project is also close to Himmler's heart, he was allowed to work for us. It's an unusual, maybe dangerous, situation, but Wilson is worth the risk. He's the coldest man I know, obsessed, slightly inhuman, but the advances he's made are extraordinary and fill me with envy. If not allowed to join the great advance on Paris, I should at least be back there, working with Wilson. But I'm not. I'm stuck here. Still taking part in Projekt Saucer, but not in the way I want.'

'And what way is that?'