Winter, page 57
‘It’s not true.’
‘There was a witness to the arrest. You didn’t calculate on that when you sent one of your tame gangsters to Vienna to arrest her. You didn’t think of that, did you?’ He gave a grim, mirthless smile, a bleak smile of triumph.
‘It’s not true.’
‘You think I don’t know what happened? You think I don’t know how your warped mind works?’
‘What?’ Pauli’s world was falling to pieces.
‘You disgusting little swine. You’ve the moral code of a snake.’
‘What?’
‘Mrs Winter: foreign national, female, Jew. Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I can’t add it up? You had Martha arrested and sent her to the camp where Lottie was expected.’
Pauli wet his lips. ‘What if I did? I saved Lottie, Peter’s wife, didn’t I?’ He heard his own voice: high and shrill, betraying everything he wanted to hide most, the fact that he was still the scared schoolboy he’d always been, and had always hated.
He looked at his father, even at this point hoping for a reprieve. His father’s lips twisted with scorn. ‘You swine!’
‘Peter’s wife.’ He waited for his father to understand, but Harald Winter’s fury and contempt were unabated. Pauli said, ‘Your mistress – and she wasn’t the only one you had – for Peter’s wife. Your Martha was old…sixty years old.’
‘I never want to see you again,’ said his father quietly.
‘Who was this witness? Can I be told that?’ said Pauli sarcastically.
‘No.’
‘Boris, I suppose.’
‘Yes, Boris.’
‘Her fancy man.’
Harald Winter looked hard at his son before deciding how to reply. ‘So that’s what you thought.’ He wiped his mouth as if trying to keep words from escaping. ‘Boris is my son: her son.’
‘Boris is your son?’ said Pauli hoarsely.
‘Your half-brother,’ said his father, twisting the knife.
‘He was probably only taken because he couldn’t prove he was half Aryan. It’s your fault if he was taken: if you’d acknowledged him as your son, he’d have been registered as a Mischling and got identity papers. Mischlinge aren’t usually taken to the camps.’
‘He was taken.’
‘Then how do you know about all this?’
‘He escaped.’
‘They never escape.’
‘Some do. Tell your masters that. Some will be there to watch you hanged.’
Pauli took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his nose. ‘I’ve never been able to please you, have I? No matter what I do, it’s wrong. I pass out of Lichterfelde and you tell me I got low marks; I fight in the war and you wonder why I don’t get a medal; I pass my law exams and you say that criminal law is easy; I become a civil servant and you call me a bureaucrat; I work hard and get promoted and you say I’m a Nazi swine! I never got a word of praise from you, and I suppose I’ll never hear one.’
‘Get away from me.’ The first drops of rain started. Huge spots like shiny coins were scattered on the dusty path.
‘I saved Lottie, your daughter-in-law.’ His father’s face showed no change. He stared at his son with a curious blankness. There was no hatred there, just indifference. Pauli said, ‘And what’s more, I destroyed the file on you.’
‘The file on me?’ Harald Winter said contemptuously. All Pauli wanted was a word of praise, or some small gesture of appreciation. The risk he’d taken in removing the file – like the risks he’d taken in a whole lot of things, from warning Alex Horner about the frame-up of General von Fritsch to saving poor Lottie – was considerable, but his father was unyielding.
‘In Vienna. The Emperor’s secret police had a thick file on you, right from the time you joined the Silver Eagle Society as a student.’
‘Ha!’ Harald Winter looked at his son and remembered the conversation with Count Kupka in the club. That was on New Year’s Eve, just before Pauli was born. He could remember the clangour of all those damned church bells. And he could remember that fool of a gynaecologist who said, ‘Your baby will be born in 1900: a child of the new century.’ Well, perhaps he was right, and what a damnable century it had been.
He wished his son had never been born. ‘Get away, I say!’
‘Mama can’t manage the wheelchair.’
‘She’ll manage. Get out of my sight! And stay away from my house until I’m dead.’ The rain started in earnest. ‘That’s not much to ask, is it?’
‘Where’s Fritz?’
That Sunday evening marked the end of the wonderful summer weather. By the time Pauli returned to his apartment, near Bismarckplatz, the rain was heavy and unrelenting. He went up in the lift and let himself in. He was surprised to find all the lights burning and a smell of coffee lingering in the air. In the kitchen was an opened cake-box on the table; its wrappings were in the bin.
‘Pauli?’ He went into the drawing room. Inge was sitting on the sofa, dressed in a sober brown-striped, button-through dress that suited the hot weather, but her hair was bedraggled. ‘Did you get wet? I got absolutely soaked.’
‘Inge! What are you doing here?’
‘It’s my home,’ she said defiantly.
‘Where’s Fritz?’
‘He’s in Hamburg.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Doing something very predictable with a willing blonde nineteen-year-old who works in the typing pool at the Blohm and Voss aircraft factory.’
‘I see.’ He looked at her; this crestfallen Inge was someone he’d never seen before.
‘That’s what he’s doing.’ She laughed. She must have got used to Fritz’s endless affairs, for there was not much bitterness in the laugh. ‘We went together. He made a speech to war workers and then took one of his audience off to bed.’ She was still lovely. How could that stupid Fritz prefer anyone else to this wonderful creature? On the low table was a Gugelhupf with a slice or two missing. There was a pot of coffee and two cups with saucers. How could she have guessed when he’d arrive? She couldn’t possibly have known; but Inge had always been lucky in small things. It was the important things that went wrong for her: Peter, Pauli and now Fritz and the baby that she wanted so much.
‘Beneath the ashes fires still rage,’ said Pauli.
Inge smiled. It was a quote from Fritz Esser’s speech, a speech he repeated when he couldn’t think of anything new to say.
‘Is it over?’ Pauli asked.
‘I don’t know.’ She touched her hair, conscious of what a sight it must look.
‘I don’t think I could…’
‘I need somewhere to stay.’
‘Fritz won’t marry you, if that’s what you are still hoping for.’
‘He won’t even come looking for me,’ she said sadly. ‘I know that.’
‘The Führer said he doesn’t want any more messy divorces.’
‘He’s a puritan. Yes, I know. Fritz won’t even take me to see him in case he gets asked awkward questions.’
‘I thought Fritz was “a real man”. Is he so intimidated by the Führer?’
‘I’m sorry if I hurt you, Pauli. I didn’t want to.’
‘Didn’t you?’ He remembered the way she’d humiliated him. He remembered her taunting him about his ‘manhood’.
‘You’ve lost weight,’ she said and poured coffee for him. It wasn’t real coffee, but it was very good.
‘Worry and hard work.’ He sipped the coffee and eyed the cake without taking a piece.
‘Worry?’
‘I’ve just had an awful row with Papa. He says he never wants to see me again.’
‘Poor Pauli.’
‘He means it.’
She laughed, trying to make light of his misery. ‘We’re both feeling rejected, aren’t we? Let’s go to bed and forget it all. It’s another day tomorrow.’
It was typical of her that she bestowed her favours on him with such condescension. He loved and wanted her, but it would all be different from now on. He would never adore her as once he’d done, because he didn’t want to be hurt again. ‘I’ve a lot of paperwork to do,’ he said. ‘I’ll sleep on the folding bed.’
She smiled. She didn’t mind too much: Inge had learned to take things as they came. Today all she needed was a place to sleep.
1944
‘We’re all serious’
‘Berlin again tonight,’ said the RAF Flight Lieutenant. An elderly man, he wore the Observer air-crew badge of the first war and the sort of medals that go with it. Now he worked in the Operations Block as an intelligence officer but, apart from briefing crews when his colleague was away, his duties were not much more than those of a high-ranking clerk. He was wearing a battle-dress blouse of the sort that the air crews wore, instead of the more usual officer’s tunic. It was an affectation, like the ‘handlebar’ moustache he’d cultivated.
‘So I heard,’ said Colonel Peter Winter. There was no need to ask him what he meant. Ever since November 1943, Berlin had been the focus of the Allied air bombardment. Enough heavy bombers had found their way to the German capital – despite the cloud that is a regular feature of Berlin winters, and the extensive built-up areas that made the city difficult to discern on the H2S radar screens – to devastate whole areas of the city. Most of the ministries were, at least temporarily, rendered uninhabitable, and so was one-fifth of Berlin’s living accommodation. The British information services were calling this series of air attacks ‘the Battle of Berlin’.
‘The long winter nights, you see,’ said the man. ‘It gives them a chance to hit the distant target and get home in the dark.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Peter.
‘You’re waiting for General Rensselaer, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Peter. He leaned closer to his copy of Picture Post magazine in the hope that the man would stop talking. The airfield was quiet now and the Operations Block silent. The bombers were all in the air, and there was no work to do until they returned.
‘But you’re not a Yank?’ It was an odd thing to say to a man dressed in the uniform, patches and badges of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, but all sorts of strange fellows, in unlikely costumes, had passed through this RAF Bomber Command airfield.
‘Yes, I am,’ said Peter.
‘You don’t talk like a Yank.’
‘I went to school in Europe,’ said Peter.
‘Ah, that’s it,’ said the man. ‘Where, may I ask?’
‘Where?’
‘Did you go to school. It’s a personal question, I know, but I’m just curious about where you learned to speak such good English.’
‘My mother is American,’ said Peter. Although tempted to say that he’d learned his good English from a Scots nanny in Berlin, he’d discovered from previous encounters that this only led to endless well-meaning questions that he didn’t want to answer. And he’d been warned a thousand times that his job was top-secret, and that meant his background and country of birth were top-secret, too.
‘Yes, Berlin is getting it again tonight. Serves the bastards right, I say.’
‘Yes,’ said Peter. ‘It serves the bastards right.’
‘It’s my boy I worry about.’
‘Your boy?’
‘My son. He flies Lancasters. He’s done fourteen ops. I worry about him. The Jerries call them “terror fliers”, you know. We’ve heard of cases where our boys have been killed out of hand after parachuting. It’s against the rules of war, but your Hun is like that.’
‘It’s hot in here,’ said Peter. He put down his magazine. The man was determined to chatter. ‘It’s stuffy, there’s no ventilation.’
‘Can’t take the blackout boards down.’
‘Couldn’t you black out the windows with curtains and let air in?’
‘We tried that, but there were always chinks.’
‘Chinks?’ said Peter. That was the difficulty about English: they were always inventing new words.
‘Chinks that let the light through.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘Not Chinese chinks,’ said the man. ‘You’ve not been in England long, I can see.’
‘It seems long,’ said Peter.
‘That’s the war,’ said the man. ‘Sometimes I think it will still be going on after I’m dead. I’m getting on for sixty.’
‘Really? You look younger.’
‘Yes, a lot of people tell me that. It’s my hair, I think.’ He looked at Peter’s empty teacup. Peter had been given a saucer, too; he’d learned that this was something that was accorded to him because of his rank. The British did not give every visitor a saucer. ‘More tea, Colonel?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘You drink it without milk, I notice.’
‘I don’t like the powdered milk.’
‘The Germans drink it like that. Were you by any chance born in Germany?’
‘Encino, California.’ He always gave Encino as his place of birth. It was a place he could describe, and it was about as far away from Europe as one could get.
‘I just remember the Germans always drinking their tea black.’ He got to his feet. ‘Are you sure you won’t have one? I’m going to get my girl to brew more. I’m a teapot.’
‘No thanks.’
‘Would you prefer coffee?’
‘I don’t like coffee.’
‘The Germans love coffee. I hear the German prisoners of war just can’t believe that we’ve gone right through all these years of war and never rationed coffee.’
‘They’d believe it if they tasted it,’ said Peter with feeling.
‘Ah!’ He looked puzzled for a moment, then laughed briefly. ‘I see what you mean. Yes.’
The British didn’t like jokes about their coffee. Peter had noticed that before. You could make jokes about their uncomfortably cold houses, about the miserably inefficient telephones and postal service, about the government and even about the King; but jokes about the British cooking or their inability to make coffee were not considered polite. ‘I never drink coffee,’ said Peter.
It was at this moment that the door opened and Glenn Rensselaer came in. His opposition to wearing a uniform had waned since he was made a brigadier general. He looked strong, smart and soldierly. His greying hair made him distinguished, rather than old, and he still had the easy smile.
‘I’m just brewing up, General Rensselaer,’ offered the man.
‘No thanks, Mr Parker. We must hurry. Come along, Colonel. Have you got your overnight things?’
‘Your driver put them in the car,’ replied Peter.
‘Let’s go, I’m driving. Wrap up. We’re in a jeep, and that’s as cold as an English bedroom.’
The night was dark. Glenn Rensselaer dismissed his driver and got behind the wheel himself. It was a long drive to London, but Glenn Rensselaer didn’t mind driving, even on the narrow, twisting, blacked-out roads of England. His ‘jeep’ turned out to be the slightly more roomy, and very slightly more comfortable, Dodge three-quarter-ton weapons carrier, but it still had canvas top and sides against which the cold night air drummed a tattoo before striking the occupants like a stream of ice-cold water. It was warmer in the front, Glenn told his nephew. Peter nodded and buttoned up his collar.
They drove in silence for a while. Peter was thinking about Lottie. By deducting the maximum reduction of sentence for good behaviour, she’d be out of prison by now. He’d written to his mother asking for news, but he couldn’t be sure the letters got there. He wondered what the RAF Flight Lieutenant would have said had he been able to see into his thoughts.
‘He guessed I was German,’ said Peter suddenly.
‘Who? Nosy? He likes to see what he can find out. Next time he sees me he’ll take me aside and tell me that he knows all about you. He used to be an interrogator in a POW camp. When he was there he wanted to be here; now he’s here he wishes he’d stayed there. You know the type.’
‘You called him “Mr”.’
‘That’s the British style for officers below field rank.’
‘He speaks German?’
‘Fluently. He was a flier, shot down in 1916. Spent the rest of the war behind barbed wire. He thinks he’s an expert on “the German mind”.’
‘He’s very persistent.’
‘An RAF Flight Lieutenant is no more than a captain. You’re a colonel. Just tell him to shut up.’
‘I don’t feel like a colonel.’
‘By now you should feel like one.’
‘I see him sitting there with a chestful of ribbons and his wing.’
‘Do you want to wear your ribbons and your Zeppelin Division insignia?’
‘That’s different.’
‘It’s not different. You don’t have to take any backchat from Nosy, or anyone like him.’
‘Did SIXPACK get away okay?’
‘Yup! We got the radio signal from the plane to say he dropped on time. Now we wait and see.’
‘He’ll be all right,’ said Peter.
‘Oh! That’s unusual coming from you. Why are you so confident about SIXPACK?’
‘He’s a crook,’ said Peter. ‘He has no intention of following his orders. He’s on the make.’
‘How exactly?’
‘I don’t know how. But some of them are like that, Glenn. They are opportunists. They’ll hang on to the money and lie low.’
‘Have you told anyone else what you think about these agents of ours?’
‘They’re not all like that. But I don’t think we should put any follow-up into SIXPACK unless we’re sure of what we’re getting.’
‘Money, you mean?’
‘Sure. He’ll ask for money, and more money. You’ll see.’
‘I hope you’re wrong.’
‘It doesn’t matter too much, does it?’
‘SIXPACK knows a few faces, doesn’t he?’ said Glenn Rensselaer.
‘He won’t turn himself in. He’ll go to ground.’
‘You’ve got a good instinct for these guys, Peter.’ Peter’s previous predictions had so far proved right.
‘It’s not instinct, Glenn, it’s judgement. I’ve lived among Germans all my life. I can recognize one from another, just as you can with Americans.’
