WINTER

BY

LEN DEIGHTON


 Len Deighton was born in London in 1929. He worked as a railway clerk before
 doing his National Service in the RAF as a photographer attached to the
 Special Investigation Branch.
  After his discharge in 1949, he went to art school - first to the St
  Martin's School of Art, and then to the Royal College of Art on a
  scholarship. It was while working as a waiter in the evenings that he
  developed an interest in cookery - a subject he was later to make his own
  in an animated strip for the Observer and in two cookery books. He worked
  for a whilc as an illustrator in New York and as art director of an
  advertising agency in London.
  Deciding it was time to settle down, Deighton moved to the Dordogne where
  he started work on his first book, The Ipcress File. Published in 1962, the
  book was an immediate and spectacular success. Since then he has published
  twenty-four books of fiction and non-fiction - including spy stories, and
  highly researched war novels apd~histo~ies - all of which have appeared to
  international Occlaim.
 By the same author

 The Ifocress File
 Horse Under Water
 Funeral in Berlin
 Billion-Dollar Brain
 An Expensive Place to Die
 Only When I Larf
 Bomber
 Declarations of War
 Close-Up
 Spy Story
 Yesterday's Spy
 Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy
 SS-GB
 XPD
 Goodbye Mickey Mouse
 Berlin Game
 Mexico Set
 London Match

 Action Cookbook Basic French Cooking (revisedand enlarged 'from Oil est le
 Garlic?)

 Fighter
 Airshipwreck
 Blitzkrieg
 The Battle of Britain
 LEN DEIGHTON

  Winter

GRAFTON BOOKS
A Division of the Collins Publishing Group

LONIX)N GLASGOW
FORONTO SYDNEY AU-KLAND
                                     Grafton Books A Division ofthe Collins Publishing Group 8 Grafton Street,
 London WIX 3LA

 Published by Grafton Books 1988

 First published in Gre.it Britain b~ Hutchinson Ltd 1987

 Copyright (:C) Len Deighton 1987

 ISBN 0-586-06895-3

 Printed and bound in (3reat Britain b) Collins, Glasgow

 Set in Times

 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
 in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any foi m, or by any means,
 electronic, mechanical, photocopving, recording or otherwise, without the
 prior permission of the publishers.

 This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
 trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated
 without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover
 other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
 including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
 readers should remember that the
opinions expressed by the characters
are not necessarily those of the author . . .'

         James Jones
        Prologue
            Nuremberg 1945

 Winter entered the prison cell unprepared for the change that the short
 period of imprisonment had brought to his friend. The prisoner was fifty-two
 years old and looked at least sixty. His hair had been thinning for years,
 but suddenly he'd become a bald-headed old man. He was sitting on the iron
 frame bed, sallow and shrunken. His elbows were resting on his knees and one
 hand was propped under his unshaven chin. The prison authorities had taken
 from him his belt, his braces, and his necktie, and the expensive
 custom-made suit from Berlin's most famous tailor was now stained and baggy.
 And yet the dark-underlined eyes were the same, and the pointed cleft chin
 made him immediately recognizable as a celebrity of the Third Reich, one of
 Hitler's most reliable associates.
 'You sent for me, Herr Reichsminister?'
  The prisoner looked up. 'The Reich is kaputt, Germany is kaputt, and I'm
  not a minister: I'm just a numbcr.'Winter could think of no way to respond
  to the bitter old man. He'd become used to seeing him sitting behind the
  magnificent hand-carved desk in the tapestry-hung room in the ministry,
  surrounded by aides, secretaries, and assistants. 'Yes, I sent for you,
  Winter. Sit down.'
 He sat down. So it was all to be formal.
  'I sent for you, Herr Doktor Winter, and I'll tell you why. They told me
  you were in prison in London awaiting interrogation. They said that any of
  us on trial here could choose any German national we wanted for our defence
  counsel, and that if the one we chose was being held in prison they'd
  release him to do it. It seemed to me that a man in prison might know what
  it's like for me in here.'
  Winter wondered if he should offer the ex-Reichsminister a cigarette, but
  when - still undecided -- he produced his precious cigarettes, the military
  policeman in the corridor shouted through the open door, 'No smoking,
  buddy!'

                I
               Prologue

  The ex-Reichsminister gave no sign of having heard the prison guard's
  voice. He carried on with his explanation. 'Two, you speak American ...
  speak it fluently. Three, you're a damned good lawyer, as I know from
  working with you for many years. Four, and this is the most important, you
  are an Obersturmbannfiihrer in the SS. . . .'He saw Winter's face change
  and said, 'Is there something wrong, Winter?'
  Winter leaned forward; it was a gesture of confidentiality and commitment.
  'At this very moment, just a few hundred yards from here, there are a
  hundred or more American lawyers drafting the prosecution's case for
  declaring the SS an illegal organization. Such a verdict would mean prison,
  and perhaps death sentences, for everyone who was ever a member.'
  'Very well,' said the prisoner testily. He'd always hated what he called
  'unimportant pettifogging details'. 'But you're not going to suddenly claim
  you weren't a member of the SS, are you?'
  For the first time since the message had come that the minister wanted him
  as junior defence counsel, Winter felt alarmed. He looked round the cell to
  see if there were microphones. There were bound to be. He remembered this
  building from the time when he'd been working with the Nuremberg Gestapo.
  Half the material used in the trial of the disgruntled brownshirts had come
  from shorthand clerks who had listened to the prisoners over hidden
  microphones. 'I can't answer that,' said Winter softly.
  'Don't give me that yes-sir, no-sir, I-don't-know-sir. I don't want some
  woolly-minded, fainthearted, Jew-loving liberal trying to get my case
  thrown out of court on some obscure technicality. I sent for you because
  you got me into all this. I remembered your hard work for the party. I
  remembered the good times we had long before we dreamed of coming to power.
  I remembered the way your father lent me money back when no one else would
  even let me into their office. Pull yourself together, Winter. Either put
  your guts into the effort for my defence or get out of here!'
  Winter admired his old friend's courage. Appearances could be deceptive: he
  wasn't the broken-spirited shell that Winter had thought; he was still the
  same ruthless old bastard that he had worked for. He remembered that first
  political meeting in the Potsdamer Platz in the 192os and the speech he'd
  given: 'Beneath the ashes fires still rage.' It had been a recurring theme
  in his speeches right up until 1945.
  'We'll fight them,' said Winter. 'We'll grab those judges by the ankles and
  shake them until their loose change falls to the floor.'

                2
             Nuremberg 1945

  'That's right,' he said. It was another one of his pet expressions. 'That's
  right.' He almost smiled.
 'Time's up, buddy!'
  Winter looked at his watch. There was another two minutes to go. The
  Americans were like that. They talked about justice and freedom, democracy
  and liberty, but they never gave an inch. There was no point in arguing:
  they were the victors. The whole damned Nuremberg trial was just a show
  trial, just an opportunity for the Americans and the British and the French
  and the Russians to make an elaborate pretence of legal rectitude before
  executing the vanquished. But it was better that the ex-Reichsminister
  didn't fully realize the inevitable verdict and sentence. Better to fight
  them all the way and go down fighting. At least that would keep his spirits
  alive. With this resolved, Winter felt better, too. It would be a chance to
  relive the old days, if only in memories.
  When Winter got to the door, the old man called out to him, 'One last
  thing, Winter.' Winter turned to face him. 'I hear stories about some
  aggressive American colonel on the prosecution staff, a tall, thin one with
  a beautifully tailored uniform and manicured fingernails ... a man who
  speaks perfect German with a Berlin accent. He seems to hate all Germans
  and makes no allowances for anything-, he treats everyone to a
  tongue-lashing every time he sends for them. Now they tell me he's been
  sent from Washington just to frame the prosecution's case against me. . .
  .' He paused and stared. He was working himself up into the sort of rage
  that had sent fear into every corner of his ministry and far beyond. 'Not
  for G6ring, Speer, Hess, or any of the others, just for me. What do you
  know about that shitface Schweinehund?'
 'Yes, I know him. It's my brother.'

 One of the Americans lawyers, Bill Callaghan - a white-haired Bostonian who
 specialized in maritime law - said, after reading through Winter's file,
 that the story of the brothers read like fiction. But that was only because
 Callaghan was unacquainted with any fiction except the evidence that his
 shipowning clients provided for him to argue in court.
  Fiction had unity and style, fiction had a beginning and a proper end,
  fiction showed evidence of planning and research and usually attempted to
  impose an orderly pattern upon the chaos of reality.
  But the lives of the Winter brothers were not orderly and had no
  discernible pattern. Their lives had been a response to parental

                3
              Prologue

 expectations, historical circumstances, and fleeting opportunities.
 Ambitions remained unfulfilled and prejudices had been disproved.
 Diversions, digressions, and disappointments had punctuated their lives.
 In fact, their lives had been fashioned in the same way as had the lives
 of so many of those born at the beginning of the twentieth century.
  Callaghan, in that swift and effortless way that trial lawyers can so
  often command, gave an instant verdict on the lives of the Winter
  brothers. 'One of them is a success story,' said Callaghan, 'and the
  other is a goddamned horror story.' Actually, neither was a story at all.
  Like most people, they had lived through a series of episodes, most of
  which were frustrating and unsatisfactory.

 4
            1899
           'A ?vhole new century'

 Everyone saw the imperious man standing under the lamppost in Vienna's
 Ringstrasse, and yet no one looked directly at him. He was very slim, about
 thirty years old, pale-faced, with quick, angry eyes and a neatly trimmed
 black moustache. His eyes were shadowed by the brim of his shiny silk top
 hat, and the gaslight picked out the diamond pin in his cravat. He wore a
 long black chesterfield overcoat with a fur collar. It was an especially
 fine-looking coat, the sort of overcoat that came from the exclusive tailors
 of Berlin. 'I can't wait a moment longer,' he said. And his German was
 spoken with the accent of Berlin. No one - except perhaps some of the
 immigrants from the Sudetenland who now made up such a large proportion of
 the city's population - could have mistaken Harald Winter for a native of
 Vienna.
  The crowd that had gathered around the amazing horseless carriage - a Benz
  Viktoria -- now studied the chauffeur who, having inspected its engine,
  stood up and wiped his hands. 'It's the fuel,' said the chauffeur, 'dirt in
  the pipe.'
  'I'll walk to the club,' said the man. 'Stay here with the car. I'll send
  someone to help you.' Without waiting for a reply, the man pushed his way
  past a couple of onlookers who were in his way and marched off along the
  boulevard, jabbing at the pavement with his cane and scowling with anger.
  Vienna was cold on that final evening of the 18oos; the temperature sank
  steadily through the day, until by evening it went below freezing point.
  Harald Winter felt cold but he also felt a fool. He was mortified when one
  of his automobiles broke down. He enjoyed being the centre of attention
  when he was being driven past his friends and enemies in their carriages,
  or simply being pointed out as the owner of one of the first of the new,
  expensive mechanical vehicles. But when the thing gave trouble like this,
  he felt humiliated.

                5
         Eighteen hundred and ninety-nine

  In Berlin it was different. In Berlin they knew about these things. In
  Berlin there was always someone available to attend to its fits and
  starts, its farts and coughs, its wheezes and relapses. He should never
  have brought the machine to Vienna. The Austrians knew nothing about such
  modem machinery. The only horseless carriage he'd seen here was
  electric-powered - and he hated electric vehicles. He should never have
  let his wife persuade him to come here for Christmas: he hated Vienna's
  rainy winters, hated the political strife that so often ended in riots,
  hated the food, and hated these lazy, good-fornothing Viennese with their
  shrill accent, to say nothing of the wretched, ragged foreigners who were
  everywhere jabbering away in their incomprehensible languages. None of
  them could be bothered to learn a word of proper German.
  He was chilled by the time he turned through big gates and into an
  entranceway. Like so many of the buildings in this preposterous town, the
  club looked like a palace, a heavy Baroque building writhing with nymphs
  and naiads, its portals supported by a quartet of herculean pillars. The
  doorman signalled to the door porters so that he was admitted immediately
  to the brightly lit lobby. It was normally crowded at this time of
  evening, but tonight it was strangely quiet.
 'Good evening, Herr Baron.'
  Winter grunted. That was another thing he hated about Vienna: everyone
  had to have a title, and if, like Winter, a man had no title, the
  servants would invent one for him. While one servant took his cane and
  his silk hat, another slipped his overcoat from his shoulders.
  Without hat and overcoat, it was revealed that Harald Winter had not yet
  changed for dinner. He wore a dark frock coat with light-grey trousers,
  a high stiff collar and a slim bow-tic. His pale face was wide with a
  pointed chin, so that he looked rather satanic, an effect emphasized by
  his shiny black hair and centre parting.
  'Winter! What a coincidence! I'm just off to see your wife now.' The
  speaker was Professor Doktor Franz Schneider, fifty years old, the best,
  or at least the richest and most successful, gynaecologist in Vienna. He
  was a small, white-faced man, plump in the way that babies are plump, his
  skin flawless and his eyes bright blue. Nervously he touched his white
  goatee beard before straightening his pince-nez. 'You heard, of
  course.... Your wife: the first signs started an hour ago. I'm going to
  the hospital now. You'll come with me? My carriage is here, waiting.' He
  spoke hurriedly, his voice pitched higher than normal. He was always a
  little nervous with

                6
           'A whole new century'

 Harald Winter; there was no sign now ofthe much-feared professor who met his
 students' questions with dry and savage wit.
  Winter's eyes went briefly to the door from which Professor Schneider had
  come. The bar. Professor Schneider flushed. Damn this arrogant swine
  Winter, he thought. He could make a man feel guilty without even saying a
  word. What business of Winter's was it that he'd had a mere half-bottle of
  champagne with his cold pheasant supper? It was Winter's wife whose pangs
  of labour had come on New Year's Eve, and so spoiled his chance of getting
  to the ball at anything like a decent time.
 'I have a meeting,' said Winter.
  'A meeting?' said Professor Schneider. Was it some sort of joke? On New
  Year's Eve, what man would be attending a meeting in a club emptied of
  almost everyone but servants? And how could a man concentrate his mind on
  business when his wife was about to give birth? He met Winter's eyes: there
  was no warmth there, no curiosity, no passion. Winter was said to be one of
  the shrewdest businessmen in Germany. but what use were his wealth and
  reputation when his soul was dead?'Then I shall go along. I will send a
  message. Will you be here?'
  Winter nodded almost imperceptibly. Only when Professor Schneider had
  departed did Winter go up the wide staircase to the mezzanine floor.
  Another member was there. Winter brightened. At Iasi, a face he knew and
  liked.
 'Foxy! I heard you were in this dreadful town.'
  Erwin Fischer's red hair had long since gone grey - a great helmet of
  burnished steel - but his nickname remained. He was a short, slight, jovial
  man with dark eyes and sanguine complexion. His great-grandparents had been
  Jews from the Baltic city of Riga. His grandfather had changed the family
  narne, and his father had converted to Roman Catholicism long before Erwin
  was born. Fischer was heir to a steel fortune, but at seventy-five his
  father was fit and well and - now forty-eight years old - Fuchs Fischer had
  expectations that remained no more than expectations. Erwin was a widower.
  He wasn't kept short of money, but he was easily bored, and money did not
  always assuage his boredom. His life had lately become a long, tedious
  round of social duties, big parties, and introductions to 'suitable
  marriage partners' who never proved quite suitable enough.
  'You give Bubi Schneider a bad time, Harald. Is it wise? He has a lot of
  friends in this town.'

                7
         Eighteen hundred and ninety-nine

  'He's a snivelling little parasite. I can't think why my wife consulted
  such a man.'
  'He delivers the children of the most powerful men in the city. The wives
  confide in him, the children are taught to think of him as one of the
  family. Such a man wields influence.'
 Winter smiled. 'Am I to beware of him?' he said icily.
  'No, of course not. But he could cause you inconvenience. Is it worth it,
  when a smile and a handshake are all he really wants from you?'
  'The wretch insisted that Veronica could not travel back to Berlin. My son
  will be born here. I don't want an Austrian son. You are a German, Foxy;
  you understand.'
 'So it's to be a son. You've already decided that, have you?'
 Winter smiled. 'Shall we crack a bottle of Burgundy?'
  'You used to like Vienna, Harald. When you first bought the house here you
  were telling us all how much better it was than Berlin.'
 'That was a long time ago. I was a different man then.'
  'You'd discovered your wonderful wife in Berlin and Veronica here in
  Vienna. That's what you mean, isn't it.'
 'Don't go too far, Foxy.'
  The older man ignored the caution. He was close enough to Winter to risk
  such comments, and go even further. 'Surely you've taken into account the
  possibility that it was Veronica's idea to have the baby here.'
 'Veronica?'
  'Consider the facts, Harald. Veronica met you here when she was a student
  at the university. This is where she first learned about love and life and
  all the things she'd dreamed about when she was a little girl in America.
  She adores Vienna. No matter that you see it as a second-rate capital for
  a fifth-rate empire; for Veronica it's still the home of Strauss waltzes
  and parties where she meets dukes, duchesses, and princes of royal blood.
  No matter what you say, Harald, Kaiser Wilhelm's Berlin cannot match Vienna
  in the party season. Would you really be surprised to find that she had
  contrived to have the second child here?'
 'I hope you haven't . . .'
  'No, I haven't spoken with her, of course I haven't. I'm simply telling you
  to ease the reins on Bubi Schneider until you're quite sure it's all his
  fault.'
 Winter stepped away and leaned over the gilt balcony. Resting his

                8
            'A whole new century'

 hand upon a cherub, he signalled to a club servant on the floor below. 'Send
 a bottle of the best Burgundy up to us. And three glasses.'
  They went to a long, mirrored room, the chandeliers blazing from a thousand
  reflections. A fire was burning at the far end of the room. The open
  fireplace was a daring innovation for Vienna, a city warmed by stoves, but
  the committee had copied the room from a gentlemen's club in London.
  Over the fireplace there was a huge painting of the monarch who combined
  the roles of emperor of Austria and king of Hungary and insisted upon being
  addressed as 'His Apostolic Majesty, our most gracious Emperor and Lord,
  Franz Joseph U The room was otherwise empty. Winter chose a table near the
  fire and sat down. Fischer stood with his hands in his pockets and stared
  out the window. Winter followed his gaze. Across the dark street a wooden
  stand had been erected for a political meeting held that morning. Now no
  one was there except two uniformed policemen, who stood amongst the torn
  slogans and broken chairs as if such impedimenta did not exist for them.
 'I've never understood women,' said Winter finally.
  'You've always understood women only too well,' said Fischer, still looking
  out the window. 'It's Americans you don't understand. It's because Veronica
  is an American that your marriage is sometimes difficult.'
 You told me at the time, Foxy. I should have listened.'
  No European man in his right senses marries an American girl. You've been
  lucky with Veronica: she doesn't fuss too much about your other women or
  try to stop you drinking or going to those parties at Madame Reiner's
  mansion. For an American woman she's very understanding.' There was a note
  of humour in Fischer's voice, and now he turned his head to see how Winter
  was taking it. Noticing this, Winter permitted himself the ghost of a
  smile.
  A waiter entered and took his time showing Winter the label and then
  pouring two glasses of'wine with fastidious care.
  Fischer sipped his wine, still looking down at the street. The plain
  speaking had divided the two men, so that now they were isolated in their
  thoughts. 'The wine steward found you something good, Harald,' said Fischer
  appreciatively, pursing his lips and then tasting a little more.
  'I have my own bin,' said Winter. 'I no longer drink from the club's
  cellar.'
 'How sensible.'

                 9
         Eighteen hundred and ninety-nine

  Winter made no reply. He drank the wine in silence. That was the difference
  between them. Fischer, the rich man's son, took everything for granted and
  left everything to chance. Harald Winter, selfmade tycoon, trusted no one
  and left nothing to chance.
  'I was here this morning,' said Fischer. He motioned down towards the
  street where the political demonstration had been held. 'Karl Lueger spoke.
  After he'd stepped down there was fighting. The police couldn't handle it;
  they brought in the cavalry to clear the street.'
 'Lueger is a rogue,' said Winter quietly and without anger.
 'He"s the mayor.'
 'The Emperor should never have ratified the appointment.'
  'He blocked it over and over again. Finally he had to do as the voters
  wanted.'
  'Voters? Riffraff. Look at the slogans down there- "Save the small
  businessman"; "Bring the family back into church"; "Down with Jewish big
  business" - the Christian Socials just pander to the worst prejudice,
  fears, and bitter jealousy. "Handsome Karl" is all things to all men. For
  those who want socialism he's a socialist; for churchgoers he's a man of
  piety-, for anyone who wants to hang the Jews, or hound Hungarians back
  across the border, his party is the one to vote for. What a rascal.'
  'You're a man of the world; you must realize that hating foreigners is a
  part of the Austrian psyche. How many votes would you get for teffing those
  people down there that the Jew is brainier than they are, or that these
  immigrant Czechs and Hungarians are more hard working?'
  'I don't like it, Foxy. Lueger is becoming as popular as the Emperor.
  Sometimes I have the feeling that Lueger could become the Emperor. Suppose
  all this hatred, all thisludenhass, was organized on a national scale.
  Suppose someone came along who had Lueger's cunning with the crowd, the
  Emperor's sway with the army, and a touch of Bismarck's instinct for
  Geopolitik. What then, Foxy? What would you say to that?'
  'I'd say you need a holiday, Harald.' lie tried to make a joke of it, but
  Winter did not join in his forced laugh. 'Who is the third glass for,
  Harald? Am I allowed to know that?' He knew it wasn't a woman: no women
  were ever permitted on the club premises.
  'The mysterious Count Kupka sent a messenger to my home today."
  'Kupka? Is he a personal friend?' There was a strained note in Fischer's
  normally very relaxed voice.

                10
           'A whole new century'

  'Personal friend? Not at all. I have met him, of course, at parties and
  even at Madame Reiner's mansion, but I know nothing about him except that
  he is said to have the car of the Emperor and to be some sort of consultant
  to the Foreign Ministry.'
  'You have a lot to learn about this city, Harald. Count Kupka is the head
  of the Emperor's secret police. He is responsible to the Foreign Ministry,
  and the minister answers only to His Majesty. Kupka's signature on a piece
  of paper is all that's needed to make a man disappear forever.'
  'You make him sound interesting, Foxy. He always seemed such a desiccated
  and boring little man.'
  Fischer looked at his friend. Harald Winter was clearly undaunted by Kupka.
  It was Winter's bravery that Fischer had always found attractive. He
  admired Winter's audacious, if not to say reckless, business ventures, and
  his brazen love affairs, and his indifference to the prospect of making
  enemies like Professor Schneider. Sometimes Fischer was tempted to think
  that Harald Winter's courage was the only attractive aspect of this
  ruthless, selfish man. 'We've known each other a long time, Harald. If
  you're in trouble, perhaps I can help.'
 "Frouble? With Kupka I I can't think how I could be.'
  'It's New Year's Eve, Harald. At midnight a whole new century begins: the
  twentieth century. Everyone we know will be celebrating. There is a State
  Ball where half the crowned heads of Europe will be seen. Why would Count
  Kupka have to see you tonight of all nights?'
  'It is something that perhaps you should stay and ask him yourself, Foxy.
  He is already twenty minutes late.'
  Fischer finished his glass of wine in one gulp. 'I won't stay. The man
  gives me the shudders.' He put the glass on the table alongside the
  polished one that was waiting for Count Kupka. 'But let me remind you that
  tonight the streets will be empty except for some drunken revellers. For
  someone who was going to bundle a man into a carriage, or throw sonicone
  into the Danube, tonight would provide a fine opportunity.'
  Winter smiled broadly. 'How disappointed you will be tomorrow, Foxy, when
  it is revealed that Count Kupka wanted no more than a chance to ride in my
  horseless carriage.'

 In fact, Kupka didn't want a ride in Winter's horseless carriage, or if he
 did, he made no mention of this desire. Nor was Count Kupka

                I I
         Eighteen hundred and ninety-nine

 the desiccated and boring little man that Winter remembered. Kupka was a
 broad-shouldered man with large, awkward hands that did not seem to go
 with his pale, lined face and delicate eyebrows, that had been plucked so
 that they didn't meet across the top of his thin, pointed nose. Kupka's
 head was large: like a balloon upon which a child had scrawled his simple,
 expressionless features. And, like paint upon a balloon, his hair - shiny
 with Macassar oil - was brushed flat against his head.
  Kupka was still wearing his overcoat when he strode into the lounge. His
  silk hat was tilted slightly to the back of his head. He put his cane
  down and removed his gloves, holding his cigar between his teeth. Winter
  didn't move. Kupka tossed the gloves down. Winter continued to sip his
  Burgundy, watching Kupka with the amused and indulgent interest that he
  would give to an entertainer coming onto the stage of a variety theatre.
  Winter could recall only two other men who smoked large cigars while
  walking about in hat and overcoat, and both of those were menials in his
  country house. It amused him that Kupka should behave in such a way.
  'I am greatly indebted to you, Winter. It is most kind of you to consent
  to seeing me at such short notice.' Kupka flicked ash from his cigar.
  'Especially tonight of all nights.'
  'I knew it would be something that couldn't wait,' said Winter with an
  edge in his voice that he did nothing to modify.
  'Yes, yes, yes,' said Kupka in a voice that suggested that his mind had
  already passed on to the next thought. 'Was that Erwin Fischer I passed
  on the stairs?'
  'He was taking a glass of Burgundy with me. Perhaps you'd do the same,
  Count Kupka?'
  'There is nothing that would give me greater pleasure, Herr Winter. . .
  .' Before Winter could reach for the bottle and pour, Kupka held up his
  hand so that gold rings, some inset with diamonds, sparkled in the light
  of the chandeliers. 'But, alas, I have an evening of work before
  me.'Winter poured wine for himself and Kupka said, 'And I will be as
  brief as I can.'
 'I would appreciate that,' said Winter. 'Won't you sit down?'
  'Sometimes I need to stand. They say that, at the Opera, Mahler stands
  up to conduct his orchestra. Stands up! Most extraordinary, and yet I
  sympathize with the fellow. Sometimes I can think better on my feet. Yes
  ... your wife. I saw Professor Doktor Schneider earlier this evening.
  Women are such frail creatures, aren't they? The problem concerning which
  I must consult you comes about only

                12
            'A whole new century'

 because of my dear wife's maternal affection for a distant cousin.' Kupka
 paused a moment to study the burning end of his cigar. 'He is rather a
 foolish young man. But no more foolish than I was when young, and no more
 foolish than you were, Winter.'
 'Was I foolish, Count Kupka?'
  Kupka looked at him and raised his eyebrows to feign surprise. 'More than
  most, Herr Winter. Have you already forgotten those hotheads you mixed with
  when you were a student? The Silver Eagle Society you called yourselves, as
  I remember. And you a student of law, too!'
  Despite doing everything he could to remain composed, Winter was visibly
  shaken. When he spoke his voice croaked: 'That was no more than a childish
  game.' He drank some wine to clear his throat.
  'For you perhaps, but not for everyone who joined it. Suppose I told you
  that the anarchist who killed our Empress last year could also be connected
  to an organization calling itself the Silver Eagle?' Kupka glanced up at
  the portrait of the Emperor and then warmed his hands at the fire.
  'If you told me that, then I would know that you are playing a childish
  game.'
  'And if I persisted?' Kupka smiled. There was no perceptible cruelty in his
  face. Hewasenjoying this little exchange and seemed to expect Winter to
  enjoy it also. But for Winter the stakes were too high. No matter how
  unfounded such accusations might be, it would need only a few well
  distributed rumours to damage Winter and his family forever.
  'Then I would call you out,' said Winter with all the self-assurance he
  could muster.
  Kupka laughed. 'A duel? Save that sort of nonsense for the Officer Corps.
  I am no more than an Einjdhrig-Freiwilliger, and one-year volunteers don't
  learn how to duel.' Kupka sat down opposite Winter and carelessly tapped
  ash into the fireplace. 'Now that I see the label on that bottle of wine,
  perhaps I could change my mind about a glass of it.'
  Winter poured a glass. The work of the picador was done, the temper and the
  weaknesses of the bull discovered: now Kupka the matador would enter the
  ring.
  'About this lad,' said Kupka after sipping the wine. 'He borrowed money
  from your bank.'
  'Hardly my bank,' said Winter. He'd come prepared. Kupka's message had
  mentioned this client of the bank.

                13
         Eighteen hundred and ninety-nine

  'The one in which some unnamed discreet person holds eighteen thousand
  nominee shares. The one in which you have an office and a secretary. The
  one in which the manager refers all transactions above a prescribed amount
  to you for approval. My wife's distant cousin borrowed money from that
  bank.'
 'You want details?'
  'I have all the necessary details, thank you. I simply want to give you the
  money.'
 'Buy the debt?' said Winter.
 'Plus an appropriate fee to the bank.'
  'The name was Petzval; he said his family was from Budapest. The manager
  was doubtful, but he seemed a sensible lad.'
 'Petzval, yes. My wife worries about him.'
 'A distant cousin, you say?'
  'My wife's family is a labyrinth of distant cousins and so on. A fine wine,
  Winter. I have not seen it on the wine list,' said Kupka, and poured
  himself some more. 'She worries about the debt.'
 'What does she think I will do to him?' Winter asked.
  'Not you, my dear friend. My goodness, no. She worries that he will get
  behind in his payments to you and go to a moneylender. You know what that
  can lead to. I see so many lives ruined,' said Kupka without any sign of
  being downcast. 'He wants to write a book. His family have nothing. Believe
  me, Winter, it's a debt you will be better without.'
 'I will inquire into the facts,' said Winter.
  'The payment can be made in any way that you wish it - paper money, gold,
  a certified cheque - and anywhere - New York, London, Paris, or Berhn.'
 'Your concern about this young man touches me,' said Winter.
  'I am a sentimental fool, Winter, and now you have discovered the truth of
  it.' Ash went down Kupka's overcoat, but he didn't notice.
  A club servant entered the lounge looking for Winter. 'There is a telephone
  call for you, Herr Baron.'
 'It will be the hospital,' explained Winter.
  'I have detained you far too long,' said Kupka. He stood up to say goodbye.
  'Please give my compliments and sincere apologies to your beautiful wife.'
  He didn't press for an answer; men such as Kupka know that their requests
  are never refused.
 'Auf Wiedersehen, Count Kupka.'
  'Auf Wiedersehen, my dear Winter.' He clicked his heels and bowed.

                14
           'A whole new century'

 Winter followed the servant downstairs. The club had only recently been
 connected to the telephone. Even now it was not possible for a caller to
 speak to the staff at the entrance desk-, the facility whereby wives could
 inquire about their husbands' presence in the club would not be a welcome
 innovation. The instrument was enshrined upon a large mahogany table in a
 room on the first floor. A servant was permanently assigned to answer it.
  'Winter here.' He wanted to show both the caller and the servant that
  telephones were not such rarities in Berlin.
  'Winter? Professor Schneider speaking. A false alarm. These things happen.
  It could be two or three days.'
 'How is my wife?'
  'Fit and well. I have given her a mild sedative, and she will be asleep by
  now. I suggest you get a good night's sleep and see her tomorrow morning.'
 'I think I will do that.'
 'Your baby will be born in i goo: a child of the new century.'
  'The new century will not b-gin until igoi. I would have thought an
  educated man like you would know that,'said Winter, and replaced the
  earpiece on the hook. Already the bells were ringing. Every church in the
  city was showing the skills of its bellringers to welcome the new year. But
  in the kitchen a dog was whining loudly: the bells were hurting its ears.
  Dogs hate bells. So did Harald Winter.

      'What good jokes you make, Ltebchen'

 Martha Som16 was beautiful. This petite, dark-haired, large-eyed daughter of
 a Jewish tailor was one of twelve children. The family had originally come
 from a small town in Rumania. Martha grew up in Hungary, but she arrived in
 Vienna alone, a sixteen-year-old orphan. She was working in a cigar shop
 when she first met Harald Winter. Within three weeks of that meeting he had
 installed her in an apartment near the Votivkirche. Now she was eighteen.
 She had a much grander place to live. She also had a lady's maid, a
 hairdresser who came in every day, an account with a court dressmaker, some
 fine jewellery, and a small dog. But Harald Winter's visits to Vienna were
 not frequent enough for her, and when he wasn't with her she was dispirited
 and lonely.
 Harald Winter's mistress was no more than a small part of his

                15
         Eighteen hundred and ninety-nine

 curious and complex relationship with Vienna. He'd spent a lot of time in
 finding this wonderful apartment with its view of the Opera House and the
 Wiener Boulevard. From here she could watch 'SirkEcke', a sacred meeting
 place for Vienna's high society, who paraded up and down in their finest
 clothes every day except Sunday.
  Once found, the apartment had been transformed into a showplace for
  Vienna's newly formed 'Secession' art movement. A Klimt frieze went
  completely round the otherwise shiny black dining room, where the table and
  chairs were by Josef Hoffmann. The study, from writing desk to notepaper,
  was completely the work of Koloman Moser. Everywhere in the apartment there
  were examples of Art Nouveau. Martha SomI6 felt, with reason, that she was
  little more than a curator for an art museum. She hated everything about
  the apartment that Harald Winter had so painstakingly put together, but she
  was too astute to say so. Winter's American wife, Veronica, had made no
  secret of her dislike for modern art, and the end result of that was the
  apartment in Kiirntnerstrasse and Martha. If Martha made her true feelings
  known, there was little chance that Winter would get rid of his treasures;
  he'd get rid of her. It would be easier, quicker, and cheaper.
 'I love you, Harry,' she said suddenly and without premeditation.
  'What was that?' said Winter. He was in his red silk dressing gown, the one
  she'd chosen for him for his thirtieth birthday. It had been a wonderful
  day of shopping, followed by an extravagant party at Sachers. That was six
  months ago: now they hardly ever went anywhere together. Since his wife had
  become pregnant with this second child, he'd become more distant, and she
  worried that he was trying to find some way to tell her he didn't want her
  any more. 'I think I must be getting deaf; my father went deaf when very
  young.'
  She went to him and threw her arms round his neck and kissed him. 'Harry,
  you fool. You're not going deaf; you're the strongest, fittest man I ever
  met. I say I love you, Harry. Smile, Harry. Say you love me.'
 'Of course I love you, Martha.' He kissed her.
  'A proper kiss, Harry. A kiss like the one you gave me when you arrived
  this afternoon hungering for me.'
 'Dear Martha, you're a sweet girl.'
  'What's wrong, Harry? You're not yourself today. Is it something to do with
  the bank?'
  He shook his head. Things were not too good at the bank, but he never
  discussed his business troubles with Martha and he never

                16
       'What goodJokes you make, Liebchen'

 would. Women and business didn't mix. Winter wasn't entirely sure about
 women being admitted to universities. On that account he sometimes felt more
 at case with women like Martha than with his own wife. Martha understood him
 so well.
 Do you know who Count Kupka is?'
  My God, Harry. You're not in trouble with the secret police? Oh, dear God,
  no.'
 'He wants a favour from me. that's all.'
  She sat down and pulled him so that he sat with her on the sofa. He told
  her something about the conversation he'd had with Kupka.
  'And you found out what he wanted to know?' She stroked his face tenderly.
  Then she looked at the leather document case that Winter had brought with
  him to the apartment. He rarely carried anything. Many times he'd told her
  that carrying cases, boxes, parcels, or packages was a task only for
  servants.
  'It's not so easy,' said Winter. She could see he wanted to talk about it.
  'My manager asked for collateral. This fellow owns land on the
  Obersalzberg. All the paperwork has been done to make the land the property
  of the bank if he defaulis on the loan. I have now changed matters so that
  the loan has come from my personal account. Luckily the land deed is
  already made over to a nominee, so I get it in case of a default.'
 'Salzburg, Harry? Austria?'
  'Not Salzburg; the Obersalzberg. It's a mountain a thousand metres high.
  It's not in Austria: it's just across the border, in Bavaria.'
 'In Germany?'
  'And that's going to be another problcm. I'm not sure it's possible to turn
  everything over to Kupka.'
  'He'll say you're not cooperating,' she said. She had heard of Kupka. What
  Jew in the whole of the empire had not heard of him. She was sick with fear
  at the mention of his name.
 'Kupka is a lawyer,' said Winter confidently.
 'That's like saying Attila the Hun was a cavalry officer,' she said.
  Winter laughed loudly and embraced her. 'What good jokes you make,
  Liebchen. I'm tempted to tell Kupka that one.'
 'Don't, Harry.'
  'You mustn't be frightened, my darling. I am simply a means to an end in
  this matter.'
 'Just do what he says, Harry.'
 'But not yet, I think. Tonight I'm meeting this mysterious fellow

                17
         Eighteen hundred and ninety-nine

 Petzval at the CAE Stoessl in Gumpendorfer Strasse. Damn him - I'll get
 from him everything that Kupka won't tell me.'
 'Remember he's a relative of Kupka's, and close to his wife.'
  'Rubbish,' said Winter. 'That was just a smokescreen to hide the true
  facts of the matter.'
 'Send someone,' she suggested.
  He smiled and went to the leather case he'd brought with him. From it he
  brought a small revolver and a soft leather holster with a strap that
  would fit under his coat.
 'If Kupka has his men there, a pistol won't save you.'
 'Little worrier,' he said affectionately and kissed her.
  She held him very tight. How desperately she envied his wife-, the
  children would always bind Harry to her in a way that nothing else could.
  'If only Martha could give him a wonderful son.

 is
           1900
       A plot of land on the ObersaLzberg

 It was dark by the time that Winter pushed through the revolving door of the
 Cafe Stoessl in the Gumpendorfer Strasse and looked around. The caf6 was
 long and gloomy, lit by gaslights that hissed and popped. There were tables
 with pink marble tops and bentwood chairs and plants everywhere. He
 recognized some of the customers but gave no sign of it. They were not
 people that Winter would acknowledge: the usual crowd of would-be
 intellectuals, has-been politicians, and self-styled writers.
  Petzval was waiting. 'A imall Jew with a black beard,' the bank manager had
  told Winter. Well, that was easy. Petzval sat at the very end table facing
  towards the door. He was a white-faced man in his late twenties, with bushy
  black hair and a full beard so that his small eyes and pointed nose were
  all you noticed of his face.
  Winter put his hat on a seat and then sat down opposite the man and ordered
  a coffee, and brandy to go with it. Then he apologized vaguely for being
  late.
 'I said you'd go back on your word,' said Petzval.
  It wasn't a good beginning, and Winter was about to deny any such
  intention, but then he realized that such an opening would leave him little
  or no room for discussion. 'Why did you think that?' asked Winter.
  'Count Kupka, is it?' Pei zval leaned forward and rested an elbow on the
  table.
  Winter hesitated but, after looking at Petzval, decided to admit it. Kupka
  had claimed Petzval as a relative and had not asked Winter to keep his name
  out of it. 'Yes, Count Kupka.'
 'He wants to buy my debt?'
 'Something along those fines.'
  Peizval pushed his empty coffee cup aside so that he could lean both arms
  on the table. His face was close to Winter, closer than-
  
  
                19
            Nineteen hundred

 Winter welcomed, but he didn't shrink away. 'Secret police,' said Petzval.
 'His spies are everywhere.'
 'Are you related to Kupka?' said Winter.
  'Related? To Kupka?' Petzval made a short throaty noise that might have
  been a laugh. 'I'm a Jew, Herr Winter. Didn't you know that when you made
  the loan to me?'
  'It would have made no difference one way or the other,' said Winter. The
  coffee came, and Winter was glad of the chance to sit back away from the
  man's glaring eyes. This was a man at the end of his tether, a desperate
  man. He studied the angry Jew as he sipped his coffee. Petzval was a
  ridiculous fellow with his frayed shirt and gravy-spattered suit, but
  Winter found him rather frightening. How could that be, when everyone knew
  that Winter wasn't frightened of any living soul?
 'I'm a good risk, am l?'
  'The manager obviously thought so. What do you do, Herr Petzval?'
  'For a living, you mean? I'm a scientist. Ever heard of Ernst Mach?'
  He waited. It was not a rhetorical question; he wanted to know whether
  Winter was intelligent enough to understand.
 'Of course: Professor Mach is a physicist at the university.'
  'Mach is the greatest scientific genius of modern times.' He paused to let
  that judgement sink in before adding, 'A couple of years ago he suffered a
  stroke, and I've been privileged to work for him while pursuing my own
  special subject.'
  'And what is your subject?' said Winter, realizing that this inquiry, or
  something like it, was expected of him.
  'Airflow. Mach did the most important early work in Prague before I was
  born. He pioneered techniques of photographing bullets in flight. It was
  Mach who discovered that a bullet exceeding the speed of sound creates two
  shock waves: a headwave of compressed gas at the front and a tailwave
  created by a vacuum at the back. My work has nierit, but it's only a
  continuation of what poor old Professor Mach has abandoned.'
 'Poor old Professor Mach?'
  'He's too sick. He'll have to resign from the university-, his right side
  is paralysed. It's terrible to see him trying to carry on.'
  'And what will you do when he resigns?' He sipped some of the bitter black
  coffee flavoured with fig in the Viennese style. Then he tasted the brandy:
  it was rough but he needed it.

                20
        A plot of'land on the Obersalzberg

  Petzval stared at Winter pityingly. 'You don't understand any of it, do
  you?'
  'I'm not sure I do,' admitted Winter. He dabbed brandy from his lips with
  the silk handkerchief he kept in his top pocket, and looked round. There
  was a noisy group playing cards in the corner, and two or three
  strange-looking fellows bent over their work. Perhaps they were poets or
  novelists, but perhaps they were Kupka's men keeping an eye on things.
  'Don't you realize the difference between a high-velocity artillery piece
  and a low-muzzle-velocity gun?'
  Winter almost laughed. He'd met evangelists in his time, but this man was
  the very limit. He talked about the airflow over missiles as other men
  spoke of the second coming of our Lord. 'I don't think I do,' admitted
  Winter good-naturedly.
  'Well, Krupp know the difference,' said Petzval. 'They have offered me
  a job at nearly three times the salary that Mach gets from his
  professorship.'
  'Have they?' said Winter. He wai impressed, and his voice revealed it.
  Petzval smiled. 'Now you're beginning to see what it's all about, are
  you? Krupp are determined to build the finest guns in the world. And
  they'll do it.'
  Winter nodded soberly and remembered how the Austrian army had been
  defeated not so long ago by Prussians using better guns. It was natural
  that the Austrians would want to know what the German armament companies
  were doing. 'Count Kupka is interested in your job at Krupp? Is that it?'
  'He wants me to report everything that's happening in their research
  department. By taking over the debt he can put pressure on me. That's why
  I want the bank to fulfil its obligations.' Petzval kept his voice to a
  whisper, but his eyes and his flailing hands demonstrated his passion.
 'It's not so easy as that.'
 'You have the land on the Obersalzberg. It's valuable.'
  'Even so, it might be better to do things the way Count Kupka wants them
  done.'
 'You, a German, tell me that?'
  Warning bells rang in Winter's head. Was Petzval an agent provocateur,
  sent to test Winter's attitude towards Austria? It seemed possible.
  Wouldn't such military espionage against Krupp be arranged by Colonel
  Redl, the chief of Austria's army intelli-
  
                21
            Nineteen hundred

 gence? Or was Count Kupka just trying to steal a march on his military
 rival? 'It might be best for everyone,' said Winter.
  'Not best for me,' said Petzval. 'I'm not suited to spying. I leave that
  sort of dirty work to the people who like it. Can you imagine what it would
  be like to spend every minute of the day and night worrying that you'd be
  discovered?'
 'You could make sure you're not discovered,' said Winter.
  'How could V said Petzval, dismissing the idea immediately. 'They'd want me
  to photograph the prototypes and steal blueprints and sketch breech
  mechanisms and so on.' He'd obviously thought about it a lot, or was this
  all part of Count Kupka's schooling?
  'It would be for your country,' said Winter, now convinced that it was an
  attempt to subvert him.
  'Have you ever been in an armaments factory?' said Petzval. 'Or, more to
  the point, have you ever gone out through the gate? At some of those places
  they search every third worker. Now and again they search everyone. Police
  raid the homes of employees. I'd be working in the research laboratory and
  I am a Jew. What chance would I have of remaining undetected?'
  Winter glanced round the caf6. Despite their lowered voices, this fellow's
  emotional speeches would soon be attracting attention to them. 'I'm sorry,
  Herr Petzval,' Winter said, 'but I can't help you further.'
  'You'll pass it to him?' Was it fear or contempt that Winter saw in those
  dark, deep-set eyes?
  'You read the agreement and signed it. There was nothing to say it couldn't
  be passed on to a third party.'
 'A third party? The secret police?,
  'Raise money from another source,' said Winter. It seemed such a lot of
  fuss about nothing.
  'I'm deeply in debt, Herr Winter. I beg you to take the land in full
  payment for the debt.'
 'I couldn't agree to that. Your prospects .
  'What prospects do I have if Kupka prevents me from leaving the country?'
  'If Kupka prevents you from leaving Austria . For a moment Winter was
  puzzled. Then he realized what the proposal really was. 'Do you mean that
  you came here hoping that I would refuse to do as Kupka demands but not
  tell him so until you were across the border?"
 'You're a German.'

                22
         A Plot of land an the Obersalzberg

  'So you keep reminding me,'said Winter. He gulped the rest of his brandy.
  'But I have business interests here, and a house. How can you expect, me to
  defy the authorities for a stranger?'
  'For a client,' said Petzval. 'I'm not a stranger; I'm a client of the
  bank.'
  'But you ask too much,' said Winter. He got up, reached for his hat, and
  tossed some coins (into the table. It was more than enough to pay for his
  coffee and the brandy, as well as any coffees and brandies that Petzval
  might have consumed while waiting for him. 'Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Petzval.'
  As Winter walked down the caf& he heard some sort of commotion, but he
  didn't turn until he heard Petzval shouting.
  Petzval was standing and shaking his fist. Then he grabbed the coins and
  with all his might threw them at Winter. At least two of the coins hit the
  glass of the revolving doors. Winter flinched. There was a demon in this
  fellow Petzval. Two waiters grabbed him, but still he struggled to free
  himself, so that a third waiter had to clamp his arms round Petzval's neck.
  'Damn you, Winter! And damn your money! I curse you, do you hear me?'
  Winter was trembling as he pushed his way through the revolving doors and
  out into the darkness of Gurnpendorfer Strasse. Of course the fellow was
  quite mad, but his curses were still ringing in Winter's head as he climbed
  into his horseless carriage. He couldn't help thinking it was a bad omen:
  especially with his second child about to be born at almost any moment.

 Winter woke up and wondered where he was for a moment before remembering
 that he was in his Vienna residence. It seemed so different without his
 wife. Usually a good night's sleep was all that Harald Winter needed to
 recuperate from the stresses and anxieties of his business. But next
 morning, sitting in his dressing room with a hot towel wrapped across his
 face, he had still not forgotten his encounter with the violent young man.
  Winter removed the hot towel and tossed it onto the marble washstand. 'Will
  there be a war, Hauser?' Winter asked while his valet poured hot water from
  the big floral-patterned jug and made a lather in the shaving cup.
  The valet lathered Winter's chin. He was an intelligent young man from a
  village near Rostock. He treasured his job as Winter's valet; he was the
  only member of Winter's domestic household who

                23
            Nineteen hundred

 unfailingly travelled with his master. 'Between these Austrians and the
 Serbs, sir? Yes, people say it's sure to come.' The razors, combs and
 scissors were sterilized, polished bright, and laid out precisely on a
 starched white cloth. Everything was always arranged in this same pattern.
 'Soon, Hauser?'
  The valet stopped the razor. He was too bright to imagine that his master
  was consulting him about the likelihood of war. Such predictions were
  better left to the generals and the politicians, the sort of men whom
  Winter rubbed shoulders with every day. Hauser was being asked what people
  said in the streets. The sort of people who lived in the huge tenement
  blocks near the factories; workers who lived ten to a room, with all of
  them paying a quarter of their wages to the landlords. Men who worked
  twelve- and even fourteenhour days, with only Sunday afternoons for
  themselves. What were these men saying? What were they saying in Berlin, in
  Vienna, Budapest and London? Winter always wanted to know such things and
  Hauser made it his job to have answers. 'These Austrians like no one, sir.,
  They are jealous of us Germans, hate the Czechs and despise the Hungarians.
  But the Serbs are the ones they want to fight. Sooner or later everyone
  says they'll finish them off. And Serbia is not much; even the Austrians
  should be able to beat them.'He spoke of them all with condescension, as a
  German has always spoken of the Balkan people and the Austrians, who seemed
  little different.
  Winter smiled to himself. Hauser had all the pride - arrogance was perhaps
  the better word - of the Prussian. That's why he liked him. Hauser steadied
  his master's chin with finger and thumb as he drew the sharpened razor
  through the lather and left pink, shiny skin. As Hauser wiped the long
  razor on a cloth draped over his arm, Winter said, "Me terrorists and the
  anarchists with their guns and bombs ... murdering innocent people here in
  the streets. They are all from Serbia. Trained and encouraged by the Serbs.
  Wouldn't you be angry, Hauser?'
  'But I wouldn't join the army and march off to war, Herr Winter.' He lifted
  Winter's chin so that he could bring the razor up the throat. 'There are
  lots of people I don't like, but I can see no point in marching off to
  fight a war about it.'
 'You're a sensible fellow, Hauser.'
  'Yes, Herr Winter,' said Hauser, twisting Winter's head as he continued his
  task.
  'We are fortunate to live in an age when wars are a thing of the past,
  Hauser. No need for you to have fears of riding off to war.'

                24
         A plot of land on the Obersalzberg

  'I hope not,' said Hauser, who had no fears about riding off to war: only
  gentlemen like Herr Winter went off to war on chargers; Hauser's class
  marched.
  'Battles, yes,' said Winter. 'The Kaiser will have to teach the Chinese
  a lesson, the English send men into the Sudan or to fight the Boers - but
  these are just police actions, Hauser. For us Europeans, war is a thing
  of the past.'
  Hauser turned his master's head a little more and started to trim the
  sideburns. He cut them a fraction shorter each time. Side whiskers were
  fast going out of fashion and, like most domestic servants, Hauser was
  an unrepentant snob about fashions. He always left Winter's moustache to
  the end. Trimming the blunt-ended moustache was the most difficult part.
  lie kept another razor solely for that job. 'So the Austrians won't fight
  the Serbs?' said Hauser as if Winter's decision would be final.
  'The Balkans are not Europe,' said Winter, turning to face the wardrobe
  so that Hauser could trim the other sideburn. 'Those fellows down in that
  part of the world are quite mad. They'll never stop fighting each other.
  But I'm talking about real Europeans, who have finally learned how to
  live together, and settle differences by negotiation: Germans, Austrians,
  Englishmen ... even the French have at last reconciled themselves to the
  fact that Alsace and Lorraine are German. That's why I say you'll never
  ride off to war, Hauser.'
 'No, Herr Winter, I'm sure I won't.'

 There was a light tap at the door. Hauser lifted his razor away in case
 his master should make a sudden move. 'Come in,' said Winter.
  It was one of the chambermaids-, little more than fourteen years old, she
  had a Carinthian accent so strong that Winter had her repeat her message
  three times before he was sure he had it right. It was the senior manager
  from the Vienna branch of the bank. What could have got into the man,
  that he should come disturbing Winter at nine-thirty in the morning at
  his residence? And yet he was usually a sensible and restrained old man.
  'Very urgent,' said the little chambermaid. Her face was bright red with
  excitement at such unusual goings-on. She'd seen the master being
  shaved-, that would be something to brag about to the parlourmaid. 'Very,
  very urgent.'
  'That's quite enough, girl,' said Hauser. 'Your master understands.'
 'Show him up,' said Winter.
 Hauser coughed. Show him up to see Winter when he was not even

                25
            Nineteen hundred

 shaved? And this was the tricky part: shaving round the master's moustache.
 Hauser didn't want to be doing that with an audience, and there was the
 chance that Winter would start talking; then anything could happen. Suppose
 his hand slipped and he made a cut? Then what would happen to his good job?
  'I'm deeply sorry to disturb you, Herr Winter,' said the senior manager as
  he was shown into the room. This time tht butler was with the visitor,
  instead of that scatterbrained little chambermaid. Hauser noticed that the
  butler's fingers were marked with silver polish. That job should have been
  completed last night. These damned Austrians, thought Hauser, are all
  slackers. He wondered if Winter would notice.
  'It's this business with Petzval,' said the senior manager. He had big
  old-fashioned muttonchop whiskers in the style of the Emperor.
 Winter nodded and tried not to show any particular concern.
  'I wouldn't have disturbed you, but the messenger from Count Kupka said you
  should be told immediately.... I felt I should come myself.'
 'Yes, but what is it?' said Winter testily.
  'He died by his own hand,' said the senior manager. 'The messenger
  emphasized that there is no question of foul play. He made that point most
  strongly.'
  'Suicide. Well, I'm damned,' said Winter. 'Did he leave a note?' He held
  his breath.
  'A note, Herr Direktor?' said the old man anxiously, wondering if Winter
  was referring to a promissory note or some other such valuable or
  negotiable certificate. And then, understanding what Winter meant, he said
  brightly, 'Oh, a suicide note. No, Herr Direktor, nothing of that sort.'
  Winter tried not to show his relief. 'You did right,' he said. He felt
  sick, and his face was flushed. He knew only too well what could happen
  when things like this went wrong.
  'Thank you, Herr Direktor. Of course I went immediately to the records to
  make sure the bank's funds were not in jeopardy.'
  'And what is the position?' asked Winter, wiping the last traces of soap
  from his face while looking in the mirror. He was relieved to notice that
  he looked as cool and calm as he always contrived when with his employees.
  'It is my understanding, Herr Winter, that, while the death of the debtor
  irrevocably puts the surety wholly into the possession of the nominated
  beneficiary, the bank's obligation ends on the death of the other party.'

                26
         A plot of land on the ObersaLzberg

 'And how much of the loan has been paid to Petzval so far?'
  'He had a twenty-crown gold piece on signature, Herr Direktor. As is the
  usual custom at the bank.'
  'So this small tract of land on the Obersalzberg has cost us no more than
  twenty crowns?'
 'The money was to be paid in ten instalments.
  'Never mind that,' said Winter. There was no message from Count Kupka?'
  'He said I was to give You his congratulations, Herr Winter. I imagine
  that . . .'
  'The baby,' supplied Winter, although he knew that Count Kupka did not
  send congratulations about the birth of babies. Count Kupka obviously
  knew everything that happened in Vienna. Sometimes perhaps he knew before
  it happened.

 'My darling!'said Winter. 'Forgive me for not beinghere earlier.'He kissed
 her and glanced round the room. He hated hospitals, with their pungent
 smells of ether and disinfectant. Insisting that his wife go into a
 hospital instead of having the baby at home was another grudge he had
 against Professor Schneider. 'It's been the most difficult of days for
 me,' said Winter.
  'Harry! You poor darling!' his wife cooed mockingly. She looked lovely
  when she laughed. E.ven in hospital, with her long fair hair on her
  shoulders instead of arranged high upon her head the way her personal
  maid did it, she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Her
  determined jaw and high cheekbones and her tall elegance seemed so
  American to him that he never got used to the idea that this energetic
  creature was his wife.
  Winter flushed. 'I'm sorry, darling. I didn't mean that. Obviously you've
  had a terrible time, too.'
  She smiled at his discomfort. It was not easy to disconcert him. 'I have
  not had a terrible time, Harry. I've had a son.'
  Winter glanced at the baby in the cot . 'I wanted to be here sooner, but
  there was a complication at the bank this morning. The senior manager
  came to talk to me while I was shaving. At home, while I was shaving! One
  of our clients died.... It was suicide.'
 'Oh, how terrible, Haff y. Is it someone I know?'
  'A Jew named Petzval. To tell you the truth, I think the fellow was up
  to no good. The secret police have been interested in him for some time.
  He might have been a member of one of these terrorist groups.'
 'How do you come to have dealings with such people, darling?'

                27
            Nineteen hundred

 She lolled her head back and was glazy-eyed. It was, of course, the after
 effects of the anaesthetic. The nurse had said she was still weak.
  'It was one of the junior managers who dealt with him. Some of them have
  no judgement at all.'
 'Suicide. Poor tormented soul,' said Veronica.
  Winter watched her cross herself and then glance at the carved crucifix
  above her bed. Ile hoped that she was not about to become a Roman
  Catholic or some sort of religious fanatic. Winter had quite enough to
  contend with already without a wife going to Mass at the crack ofdawn
  each day. He dismissed the idea. Veronica was not the type; if Veronica
  became a convert, she was more likely to be a convert to Freud and his
  absurd psychology. She'd already been to some of Freud's lectures and
  refused to laugh at Winter's jokes about the man's ideas. 'It's a good
  thing you're not running the bank, my dearest Veronica. You'd be giving
  the cash away to any bare-arsed beggar who arrived with a hard-luck
  story.' He moved a basket of flowers from a chair - the room was filled
  with flowers - and noticed from the card that the employees of the Berlin
  bank had sent them. He sat down.
  'I want to call him Paul,' said his wife. 'Do you hate the name Paul?'
  'No, it's a fine name. But I thought you'd want to name him after your
  father.'
  'Peter and Paul, darling. Don't you see how lovely it will be to have two
  sons named Peter and Paul?'
  'Have you been saving up this idea ever since our son Peter Harald was
  born, more than three years ago?'
  She smiled and stretched her long legs down in the bedclothes. She'd
  chosen two names her American parents would find equally acceptable. She
  wondered if Harry realized that. He probably did; Harry Winter was ven,
  sharp when it came to people and their motives.
  'All that time?' said Winter. He laughed. 'What a mad Yankee wife I
  have.'
 'You are pleased, Harry? Say you're pleased.'
 'Of course I am.'
  'Then go and look at him, Harry. Pick him up and bring him to me.'
  Winter looked over his shoulder hoping that the nun would return, but
  there was no sign of her. She was obviously giving them a chance for
  privacy. Awkwardly he picked up his newly born son.

                28
        A plot of land on the Obersalzberg

 'Hello, Paul,' he said. 'I have a present for you, child of the new
 century.' He was a pudgy little fellow with a screwed-up face that seemed
 to scowl. But the baby's eyes were Veronica's: smoky-grey eyes that never
 did reveal her innermost thoughts. Winter put the baby back into the cot.
  'Do you really, Harry? How wonderful you are. What is it, darling? Let
  me see what it is.'
  'It's a plot of land,' said Winter. 'A small piece of hillside on the
  Obersalzberg.,
 'A plot of land? Where's Obersalzberg?'
  'Bavaria, Germany, the very south. It's the sort of place where a man
  could build himself a comfortable shooting lodge. A place a man could go
  when he wants to get away from the world.'
  'A plot of land on the Obersalzberg. Harry! You still surprise me, after
  all this time we've been married.' Through the haze of the ether that was
  still making her mind reel, she wondered if that represented some
  deep-felt desire of her husband. Did he yearn to go somewhere and get
  away from the world? He already had that beastly girl Martha to go to.
  What else did he want?
 'What's wrong?' said Winter.
  'Nothing, darling. But it's a strange present to give a newborn baby,
  isn't it?'
  'It's good land: a fine place with a view of the mountains. A place for
  a man to think his own thoughts and be his own master.' He looked at the
  baby. It was happier now and managed a smile.

 29
            1906
      'The son of thing they're told at school'

 'You have two delightful little boys, Veronica,' said her father. He
 watched through the window of the morning room as the solemn ten-year-old
 Peter pushed his radiantly joyful little blond brother across the lawn on
 a toy horse. The children were in the private gardens of a big house in
 London's Belgravia. It was a glorious summer's day, and London was at its
 shining best. An old gardener scythed the bright-green grass to make
 scallop patterns across the lawn. The scent of newly cut grass hung
 heavily in the still air and made little Pauli's eyes red and weepy. Cyrus
 sniffed contentedly. Their English friends urged them to come to London
 in 'the season', but the Rensselaers preferred to cross the Atlantic at
 this time of year, when the seas were calmer. 'No matter what I'm inclined
 to say about that rascally husband of yours, at least he's given you two
 fine boys.'
  'Now, now, Papa,' said Veronica mildly, 'let's not go through all that
  again.'She was wearing a long'tea gown'of blue chiffon with net over
  darker-blue satin. Such afternoon gowns gave her a few hours' escape from
  the tight corsets that fashion forced her into for most of the day. It
  was a lovely, loose, flouncy creation that made her feel young and
  beautiful and able even to take on her parents. She pulled the trailing
  hem of it close and admired it.
  'She"s given Harry two fine boys,' Mrs Rensselaer scoffed. 'Isn't it just
  like a man to put it the wrong way around? Who endured that dreadful
  hospital in Vienna, when there was a bedroom and our own doctor waiting
  for her in New York City?' They were getting at her again, but she was
  used to it by now. She noticed how much stronger her mother's
  high-pitched Yankee twang sounded compared with her father's softly
  accented low voice. She noticed all the accents much more now that her
  life was spent amongst Germans. She wondered if her spoken English had
  now acquired some sort of

                30
       'The sort of thing they're told at school'

 German edge to it. Her parents had never mentioned it, and she knew better
 than to ask them.
  'I couldn't have come home to have the baby, Mother. You know I
  couldn't.' She suppressed a sigh. For six years they'd nursed this
  resentment, and still it persisted.
  Her father watched the children cross the road hand in hand with their
  nanny and heard the front door as they came in time to have a wash before
  tea. He said, 'I travel across the Atlantic regularly, Veronica, and your
  mother usually accompanies me. It's ridiculous for you to go on
  pretending that you can't come home for a visit when we come here to
  London every year without fail.' He thrust his hands into his pockets.
  'By golly, when I first came to Europe, I sailed on a four-masted barque,
  now your mother and I sleep in state rooms with running water, and eat
  dinners that wouldn't disgrace the Ritz.'
  Cyrus G. Rensselaer was a distinguished-looking man -in his midfifties.
  He had a shock of black hair combed straight back, pale-blue eyes, and
  a large moustache. He made no concessions to the warm weather: he wore
  a black barathea morning suit with a fancy brocaded waistcoat, and a
  loose tic with a silver pin through the knot. Yet there was a certain
  unconventional look to him - his hair was longer than was fashionable -
  so that sometimes, on the steamship coming over, fellow passengers
  thought he might be a famous musician or a successful painter. This
  always pleased Cyrus Rensselaer because he often said that he would have
  become a painter had his father not thrashed him every time he wanted to
  stop studying engineering.
  'I know, Father. You've told me all that in your letters. But Harry is
  a German; the boys are German. I think of Germany as my home now.'The
  difficulty was that her parents spoke no foreign languages, and their one
  visit to Berlin for the wedding in 1892 seemed to have deterred both of
  them from ever going to the continent of Europe again.
  'You were able to go to Vienna an.] have the baby, darling,' explained
  her mother. 'Papa feels that coming back to New York wouldn't have been
  all that much more of a strain.'
  'The baby was early, Mother. We were in Vienna and the doctor said I
  shouldn't travel.' She looked at her parents; they were unconvinced.
  'Harry was furious about it. He'd made all the arrangements in Berlin.
  Poor little Paul - Harry used to call him "the little Austrian dumpling"
  until I made him stop saying it.'
 Her father pulled a gold hunter from his waistcoat pocket and

                31
           Nineteen hundred and six

 looked at it. 'Didn't your Harry say he'd be back for tea?'
 'He's lunching at the club.'
 'He likes clubs,' said her father.
  'It's some mining deal . . .' explained Veronica. 'Someone has discovered
  a cure for malaria. They think it's something to do with mosquitoes. Harry
  says that if it works it will really open up the darkest part of Central
  Africa.'
 'It's not a woman, is it?' whispered her mother.
 'No, it's not a woman, Mother.'
 'How can you be so sure?' her mother asked.
  'I'm sure, Mother. Harry's not so smart about women as he is about money.'
  Mr Rensselaer did not like hearing Harald Winter praised, and he certainly
  didn't like to hear him praised about his investing and banking skills, at
  which he considered himself pre-eminent. 'I'm surprised your Harry isn't
  investing in flying machines,' he said sardonically.
  Veronica looked up at him sharply. 'You underestimate Harry, Papa. You
  think he'll invest money into any crazy scheme put up to him. But Harry is
  clever with money; he would never put it into the hands of people like
  that.'
  'I'm darned if I ever know what to make of your Harry,' said her father.
  'He spends money on such toys as this Daimler Mercedes and then takes you
  down to a cabin on the Obersalzberg and makes you manage with only a couple
  of local servants. I didn't pay for your education so that you could wash
  dishes and sweep the house.'
  'It's not a cabin, Papa, more like a hunting lodge. The land passed to
  Harry because of a bad debt. He gave it to Pauli as a christening present.
  Now he's built the house there. I love going there. It's the only time I
  have Harry all to myself. And we take two maids from the Berlin house, as
  well as the cook, Harry's valet and the chauffeur.'
  'It sounds like a lot of work for you, darling,' said her mother. 'And
  walking for five miles! We could hardly believe it when we read your
  letter. We couldn't picture you walking so far. Don't you get lonely?"
  Veronica stniled. 'I have Harry and the children; how could I ever be
  lonely? And, anyway, we have plenty of neighbours.'
 'What sort of neighbours? Peasants? Woodcutters?'
  'No, Papa. Some fine families have houses there. It's become very
  fashionable; musicians and writers . . . some of them live there all year
  round.'

                32
        'The sort of thing they're told at school'

  'It sounds like an odd kind of christening present. Harry should have
  sold it and put the money into some investments for your Pauli.'
  'I want Pauli to have it, Papa. Last year the woodcarver in the village
  carved a big sign - "Haus Pauli" -- that will be fixed over the gate.
  It's the most beautiful place in the whole world: meadows, pine trees,
  and mountains. Behind us there is the Hohe G611 and the Kehistein
  mountain. From the window ofthe breakfast room we can see for miles,
  right across Berchtesgaden or into Austria.'
  'It's southerrunost Bavaria. I looked on the atlas. That's too far for
  us to travel,' said Rensselaer in a voice that precluded any further
  discussion.
  The Scots nanny brought the boys in promptly at four. Their hands and
  faces were polished bright pink, and a brown circle of iodine had been
  painted on Paul's newly grazed arm. It was always blond Pauli who fell:
  he was the unlucky one. Or was he careless or clumsy, either way he was
  always cheery and smiling. Peter was quite different; he was dark, sober,
  and composed, a thoughtful little boy who'd never been babyish like his
  young brother, They kissed their mother and Granny and Grandpa dutifully
  and then, in response to the belipull, the maids brought high tea, with
  the best china teacups and silver pots. And there was Cook's homemade
  strawberry jam, which went onto the freshly cooked scones together with
  a spoonful of pale-yellow Cornish cream.
  Tea was poured, plates distributed, cakes cut, and sugar spooned out.
  Throughout the hubbub of the afternoon tea, Rensselaer remained standing
  by the window; his teacup and saucer and a plate with scones and cream
  were on the table untouched. He had started his engineering career out
  west, working in places where a man soon learned how to handle hard
  liquor, his two fists, and sometimes a gun. The way in which he'd gained
  admittance to New York's toughest business circles, and then to its
  snobby society families, was as much due to Rensselaer's clumsy honesty,
  disarming directness, and awkward charm as to his luck and mining skills.
  But he'd never acquired the social grace that his wife expected of him,
  and this sort of fancy English tea was a ceremony he didn't enjoy.
  'Are you keeping up the I atin?' Rensselaer asked Peter. He was a thin,
  wiry child, dressed, like his little brother, in cotton knickerbocker
  trousers with a sailor-suit top. He had the same dark hair that his
  grandfather had, and the same pale-blue eyes. There was no other
  noticeable resemblance, but it was enough to make them recognizably kin.

                33
           Nineteen hundred and six

  'Yes, sir.' Peter was a graceful little boy, slim and upright, standing
  face to face with his grandpa and answering in clear and excellent English.
  'Good boy. You must keep up the Latin and the mathematics. Your mother
  always got top grades in mathematics when she was at school in Springtown.
  Did she tell you that?'
  'No, sit. She didD't tell me that.' There was an awkward relationship
  between Veronica's parents and her sons. The Rensselaers were unbending,
  not understanding that children were no longer treated in the formal and
  distant way that they had treated their daughter.
  'And what are you going to be when you grow up, young Peter?' Rensselaer
  asked him. How he wished the children hadn't had these very short Prussian
  haircuts. He was used to children having longer hair. These 'bullet heads'
  were unbecoming for his grandchildren, and he resented Veronica's allowing
  it.
 'I'm going to fly in the airship with Count Zeppelin,' said Peter.
  His little brother looked at him with respect bordering on awe, but Mr
  Rensselaer laughed. 'Airship! That's rich!' he said and laughed again.
  Pauli laughed, too, but Peter went red. To help cover his embarrassment,
  Mary Rensselaer said, 'Would you like to come and see us in America, Peter?
  We'd love to have you visit with us.'
 'Next year I go to my new school,' said Peter.
 'You're boarding them, Veronica?' she asked her daughter.
  'No, Mother. It's a day school. Harry doesn't like boarding schools except
  well-supervised military schools. He says there are always bullies. Harry
  says it makes the English the way they are.'
  'No harni those Germans of yours becoming more like the English,' said Mr
  Rensselaer. 'A little bullying at boarding school might have done that
  bellicose little Kaiser Wilhelm a power of good.'He marked this observation
  with a sound that might have been chuckle or a snort, then wiped his nose
  on a very big red cotton handkerchief.
  Veronica glanced nervously at the boys, then said, 'Harry says the Kaiser
  has done wonders for Germany. He's brought us closer to Austria, and that's
  a good thing.'
  'It's a good thing for Harry, because of his business interests in Austria,
  but the Dual Alliance, as they call it, has frightened Russia and France
  into closer ties, and whatever France does, Britain does too. The Kaiser's
  heading himself into a lot of trouble, Veronica. I want you to remember
  that when you are reading your newspapers.'

                34
       'The sort of thing they're told at school'

  'Harry says all that war talk is just nonsense the newspaper writers
  invent to sell their papers.'
  Mr Rensselaer leaned down to talk to Peter. 'You remember that your
  mother is an American, young man. And that makes you half American, too.
  Never mind about flying in airships with Count Zeppelin; you come to New
  York City and you'll see things that will make your eyes pop. America is
  the onlv country for a young man like you: farmlands that stretch to the
  horizon and beyond, and railroads crisscrossing the whole continent. You
  come to America and discover what it's like to breathe the air offree
  men.' He reached out to put his hand on the child's shoulder.
  Peter pushed his grandfather's hand away and turned on him. 'I don't want
  to go with you. I hate you. You're a bad man to say nasty things about
  His Majesty. He's my Emperor. Germany has to be strong, to fight die
  French and the English and the Russians. Then the world will respect the
  Kaiser. I'll never go to America - never, never.'
  The smile froze on Pauli's face. For a moment the four grownups were too
  embarrassed to react. They watched this ten-year-old's outburst without
  knowing what to do about it. Cyrus Rensselaer felt a sudden sense of
  isolation. He'd spent a lot of time looking forward to this meeting with
  his daughter and his grandsons. They were his only heirs. But instead of
  the two amiable, tousled, freckle-faced kids he was expecting to see. he
  was suddenly faced with two militant Teutons. Rensselaer was shocked and
  speechless. No one moved until six-year-old Paul - sensing that something
  awful had happened - let out a howl and began to cry more ioudly than
  he'd ever cried before. Then the nanny grabbed the hand of little Paul
  and tried to grasp Peter's hand, too, but he ran from the room and
  slammed the door behind him with all his might.
  Veronica said, rake then i both up to their room, Nanny. You can tell
  Peter that his father will hear about this when he gets home.'
  'Yes, rnadam,' said the mirse. 'I really don't know ... It's not like
  Peter. . . .'
  'That will be all, NannN,' said Grandpa Rensselaer. When the children and
  nanny had gone, he went to the sidetable and poured himself a whiskev.
  He downed it in one gull).
  'It's the journey ... and the exciten,,2nt,' said Veronica when her
  father turned back to face her. 'Peter is usually the quiet one. Peter
  is polite and thoughtful. It's Pauli who gets over excited.' She spoiled
  the little one, and she kneA it. Did this sudden outburst mean that Peter
  felt neglected and wa,; demonstrating his discontent?

                35
           Nineteen hundred and six

  'It's that husband of yours,' said Rensselaer. 'You can see what sort of
  ideas he puts into the children's heads ... Count Zeppelin ... airships,
  and all this nonsense about Kaiser Wilhelm, "my Emperor". It's time I had
  a word with your Harald.'
  'Please don't, Father. It's none of Harald's doing. He spends little enough
  time with the children.' She smoothed her satin dress nervously.
  'Someone's been filling the boy's head with mischievous twaddle,' said
  Rensselaer.
 'It's the school, Father. It's the sort of thing they're told at school.'

 Cyrus Rensselaer's influence and popularity were evident that evening. His
 twenty-two dinner guests provided a cross section of Britain at the height
 of its power. On Mary Rensselaer's right sat an Indian prince, a delicate
 old man with an Eton accent so pronounced that sometimes even the other
 English guests had trouble understanding him. Facing her there was a
 weatherbeaten infantry colonel who'd soldiered through the empire. In
 Transvaal he'd won his Queen's newly founded Victoria Cross, and in
 Afghanistan he'd left an arm.
  Dominating the table with his anecdotes there was a plainspeaking
  Yorkshireman, sole owner of a steel works from which had come enough metal
  to build a complete Royal Naval Battle Squadron. And listening with delight
  there was a Peer of the Realm: a handsome, bearded youth who'd inherited
  half a million acres of northern England. He was rich on coal from a couple
  of mines he'd never seen, and on rents from a dozen villages that he
  couldn't, when asked, name.
  The women were as formidable as the men, and just as surprising. The Indian
  princess could speak a dozen languages, and her German was faultless. The
  wife of the steelmaster had been painted by Degas, and the bank official's
  wife had been a lady-in-waiting to the late Queen. A buxom woman with a
  glittering diamond collar had run a hospital in the Sudan before marrying
  a man who owned several thousand miles of Latin American railways.
  The dining room was designed to complement such eminent company: fine
  paintings, carpets, linen, crystal and silver. And the food and wines were
  memorable.
  Harald Winter was, overwhelmed. Even his Berlin-tailored evening dress felt
  wrong, especially when he found all the other men wearing white waistcoats
  instead of the black ones that were still

                36
       'The sort of thing they're told at school'

 fashionable in Berlin. In Berlin he was treated as a wealthy and
 influential - not to say powerful - man. But he felt diffident in the
 presence of these people. They were relaxed and courteous, but Winter was
 not such a fool that he didn't see their arrogant selfconfidence. Though
 they complimented him on his excellent English, he knew the way they
 ridiculed any sort of foreign accent. Their exaggerated politeness and
 modest disclaimers were the veneer that overlaid their rough contempt for
 foreigners such as Winter, and for his banking house, of which they all
 told him they'd never heard.
  'I'm completely out of touch nowadays,' one of the guests - a financial
  expert - told him apologetically. 'The only bankers I remember are the
  really big ones.... Getting old, you see.' He tapped his head and turned
  away to speak with someone else. Winter felt humiliated.
  Rensselaer was just as bad. He'd spent most of the meal talking to the
  Indian princess. Winter wondered if his father-in-law guessed that he
  urgently wanted to put a financial proposition to him. He'd been trying
  to have a private word with his host since arriving back from a
  disappointing business lunch. Was he avoiding him? Surely not. Rensselaer
  was as keen on a profitable deal as any other man in the financial world.
  It was just as well they were house guests. Perhaps he could have a word
  with Rensselaer after these dinner guests had gone.
  'You look pensive, darling,' Veronica told her husband when the men
  joined the ladies in the drawing room. 'Is everything all right?'
  'Everything is fine,' said Winter. It was no good telling his wife how
  much he disliked these people. Veronica and her family were the same as
  the rest of them, so he simply told her she was looking wonderful in her
  long pale- green silk dress. She'd never perceive the way in which these
  rich and powerful guests of her father's despised the little German
  banker and the nation from which he came.
  'I'm not a pork butcher,' he peevishly responded when the woman with the
  diamond collar asked him what he did for a living in Berlin. It was a
  silly remark and simply revealed his nervous exasperation.
  'My grandfather was a butcher in Leeds,' she cheerfully told him. 'Even
  now I can remember the wonderful roast beef we always had at his house.'
  Winter was embarrassed at her respense. He desperately tried to make
  amends for his gratuitous rudeness. 'I have a bank,' he said and, in
  keeping with this English obsession for modesty, added, 'a

                37
           Nineteen hundred and six

 very small bank.' She laughed. No matter what one did, somehow the English
 always knew how to make a foreigner feel a fool.

 The two boys, in the nursery bedroom at the very top of the house, heard the
 clatter of carriages and the sounds of the guests leaving soon after
 midnight. Peter, lost in a dream about airships, went back to sleep almost
 immediately, but little Pauli was still worried about his brother's outburst
 that afternoon. Paul had none of the cleverness that distinguished his elder
 brother but, perhaps in compensation for this, the little blond child had an
 instinct about what went on in other people's minds. He knew that his
 grandfather was deeply hurt by what his brother had said. Peter was like
 that: he had the capacity for cruelty that comes so easily to the
 self-righteous.
  Now Pauli stayed awake worrying about what would happen to Peter. Perhaps
  he'd be sent away. He'd heard of children being sent away. They were sent
  away to jobs, and to schools, and sometimes sent away to the army or the
  navy. Pauli had no idea of what happened to those who were 'sent away' but
  now it was dark, and the flickering nightlight made strange shadows on the
  ceiling and on the wall, and all sorts of frightening ideas about being
  sent away occurred to him.
  He called to his brother, but Pauli's voice was faint and Peter's sleep was
  not interrupted. Pauli got out of bed and decided to wake up Nanny; she'd
  be angry, of course, but he knew she'd pick him up and cuddle him and put
  him back to bed with reassuring words that sometimes little boys like Pauli
  want to hear in the middle of the dark night.
  Pauli was halfway down the top flight of the back stairs by the time he
  fully realized that he wasn't in his home in Berlin. He walked up and down
  the line of closed bedroom doors trying to decide which one to try. It was
  then that he heard voices from somewhere below. He continued down the
  servant's stairs until he got to the ground floor. The voices were coming
  from a room at the back of the house. It was Grandpa's study - a small back
  room where Cyrus Rensselaer went to smoke. Here he kept a comfortable old
  leather chair, a desk where he could write, and a locked cabinet that
  contained his very finest French brandy and his favourite sourmash bourbon,
  which he brought with him because the London wine merchants had never heard
  of it.
  From his position on the landing, Pauli could squeeze into a space where
  empty steamer trunks were stored, and from there he could

                38
       'The sort of thing they're told at school'

 look through an open fanlightand see into the room.
  Grandpa was sitting in the big leather chair, alongside the coal fire
  that was now only red embers and grey ash. Pauli's father was perched on
  the edge of the writing desk. His father looked uncomfortable. Both men
  had cut-glas- tumblers in their hands. Grandpa was smoking a big cigar
  and Daddy was lighting one too. Pauli could smell the smoke as it curled
  up into his hiding place. Grandpa took the cigar from his mouth and said,
  'Never mind all the stories about a cure for malaria, Harry. If you are
  trying to raise capital for your bank, it means your bank is in trouble.,
  'It's not in trouble,' said Winter. He tugged at the hem of his black
  waistcoat and silently cursed his Berlin tailor for not knowing that in
  England it was pass6.
 'When people start saying a bank is in trouble, it's in trouble.'
 Harald Winter said, 'It's a chance to expand.'
  Rensselaer interrupted him. 'Never mind the bullshit, Harry; save that
  for the suckers. My friends in the City tell me you're not sound.'
  Winter stiffened. 'Of course it's sound. Half the money still remains in
  German government bonds.'
  'Damnit, Harry, don't be so naive. It's not sound because your alurninium
  factory may not be a success. Suppose the aluminium market doesn't come
  up to your expectations? How are you going to pay back the money? Your
  investors think all their money is in government bonds. It's bordering
  on the dishonest, Harry.'
  Winter sipped his drink 'The electrolytic process has changed aluminium
  production. The metal is light and very strong; they're experimenting
  with all kinds of mixtures, and these alloys will revolutionize building
  and automobiles, and they'll find other industrial uses for it.'
  , Sure, sure, sure,' said Rensselaer. 'I've heard all these snake-oil
  stories .... There's always a claim where some guy will strike gold or
  oil ... and it's always next week. I grew up on all that stuff.'
  'I'm not talking about something that might never happen,' said Winter.
  'I'm talking about using aluminium alloys.'
  'Aluminium: okay. I made a few inquiries. In 1855 it cost a thousand
  Reichsmarks per kilo; in i 88o, twenty Reichsmarks ; now I can buy it for
  two Reichsmarks a kilo. What price will it be by the time your factory
  comes into full-scale production?'
  'I'm not selling aluminium, Mr Rensselaer.' He always addressed his
  father-in-law as 'Mr Rensselaer', always expecting him to suggest he
  called him Cyrus or Cy as his friends did; but Cyrus Rensselaer

                39
           Nineteen hundred and six

 never did suggest it, even though he called his son-in-law Harry. It was
 another example of the way Harald Winter was deliberately humbled. Or that
 was how it seemed to him. 'I'll be selling manufactured components that bolt
 together to make the rigid framework for airships.'
  'Then why the aluminium factory? Buy your materials on the open market.'
  'I have to have an assured supply. Otherwise I could sign a contract and
  then be held to ransom by the aluminium manufacturers.'
  'It's my daughter I'm thinking of, Harry. You haven't told her that you are
  going to put every penny you can raise into producing metal components for
  flying machines. I sounded her out this afternoon: she thinks you're
  cautious with money. She trusts you to look after the family.'
  Winter drew on his cigar. 'These zeppelins are going to change the world,
  Mr Rensselaer. A vear ago I would have shared your scepticism. But I've
  seen Zeppelin's first airship flying - as big as a city block and as smooth
  as silk.'
  'And as dangerous as hell. Don't you know those ships are full of hydrogen,
  Harry? Have you ever seen hydrogen burn?'
  'I know all the problems and the dangers,' said Winter, 'but, just as you
  have your contacts here in London, I have friends in the Berlin War Office.
  At present the General Staff is showing strong opposition to all forms of
  airship; the soldiers don't like new ideas. But the Kaiser has personally
  erdered the setting up of a MotorluftschiffStudien-Geselischaft: a
  technical society for the study of airships. It's still very secret, but
  it's just a matter of time until the army orders some big rigids from Count
  Zeppelin.'
  'That's all moonshine, Harry. I hear that Zeppelin's second ship, which
  flew in January, turned out to be a big flop. They say its first flight is
  going to be its one and only flight.'
  'But Count Zeppelin is already building LZ 3, and it will fly in about
  twelve weeks from now. Make no mistake: he'll go on building them.'
  'Maybe that just shows he doesn't know when he's licked. And who can say
  how the airships will shape up when the army tests them?'
  'Do you realize how much aluminium goes into one of those airships? They
  weigh almost three tons. Thousands of girders and formers go into each
  ring. I've done some sums. Using Count

                40
       'The sort of thing they're told at school'

 Zeppelin's first airship as a yardstick, I'd need only six-point-seven-
 three per cent of an airship's aluminium requirement to break even and pay
 back the interest.'
  Even Rensselaer was visibly impressed. 'But we're talking about every red
  cent you possess, Harry. Why not a smaller investment?'
  'I could have a smaller investment, I could do without the aluminium
  factory and be at the mercy ofmy suppliers. I could have half an interest
  and have only nonvoting shares, but that would mean someone else was
  making the decisions about who, what, why and where we sell. That's not
  my way, Mr Rensselaer: and it's not your way, either.'
  Rensselaer scratched his chin. 'I've spent half my working life trying
  to talk people out of these kinds of blue-sky investments. But I can see
  I'd be wasting my time trying to talk you out of it.' Rensselaer got up
  from his chair for enough time to flick ash into the fire. 'J. P. Morgan
  bought up steel companies to make U.S. Steel, and he's made himself one
  of the most powerful men in the U.S., maybe one of the most powerful men
  in the whole damned world. It looks easy, but don't think that you can
  corner the market in aluminium and become the J. P. Morgan of Germany.
  The European market just doesn't work that way.'
 'I know that, Mr Rensselaer.'
  'Do you?' He slumped back into his chair. 'That's good, because I meet
  a whole lot of people who try to get me involved in financing crackpot
  schemes like that.'
 'It's just bridging.'
  'It's not bridging, Harry!' Suddenly Rensselaer's voice was louder. Then,
  as if determined to control his temper, he lowered it again to say,
  'We're talking about guarantees that will go on until 1916. Ten years!
  A hell of a lot of things could happen between now and then.'
 'I have most of it, Mr Rensselaer.'
  'You need nearly a million pounds sterling, Harry, and that's a hell of
  a lot of dough when you've got no collateral that I'd want to try and
  realize on.'
  Winter knew that his fattier-in-law had decided to let him have the
  money. He smiled. 'It's a great opportunity, Mr Rensselaer. You'll never
  regret it.'
  'I'm regretting it already,' said Rensselaer. 'I've always tried to stay
  clear of government agencies in all shapes and forms. Especially I've
  avoided armies and navies. Now I'm going to find myself with a million
  pounds sterling invested in the army of the Kaiser: a man I

                41
           Nineteen hundred and six

 wouldn't trust to look after my horses. What's worse, I'm going to have
 the security of my investment depending upon his bellicose ambitions.'
  Rensselaer knew his words would offend his son-in-law but he was angry
  and frustrated at the trap he found himself in. When Winter wisely made
  no reply, Rensselaer said, 'It's for Veronica's sake - you know that, of
  course - and I'll want proper safeguards built into the paperwork. I'll
  want your life insured with a U.S. company for the full amount of the
  loan '
  'It's the Kaiser's life you should insure,' said Winter. 'My death would
  make no difference to the investment.'
  'Here's to the Kaisei's health,' said Rensselaer sardonically. He raised
  his glass and drank the rest of his whiskey.
  Winter smiled and decided not to drink to the Kaiser's health. In the
  circumstances it would seem like lese-majesty.
  Little Pauli crawled out of his hiding place and went slowly upstairs,
  trying to figure out what the two grownups had been talking about. By the
  time he found his bedroom again, only one part of the scene he'd
  witnessed was clear to him. He shook Peter awake and said, 'I saw Daddy
  and Grandpa. 'rhey were smoking cigars and talking. Daddy made Grandpa
  drink to the health of His Majesty the Emperor. He made him do it,
  Peter.'
  Peter came awake slowly, and when he heard Pauli's story he was
  sceptical. Little Pauli hero-worshipped his father in a way that Peter
  would never do. 'Go to sleep, Pauli, you've been dreaming again.'He
  turned over and snuggled deep into the soft down pillow.
  'I haven't been dreaming,' said Pauli. He wanted Peter to believe him -
  he wanted his big brother to treat him as an equal. 'I saw them.' But'~y
  the time. morning came, he was no longer quite certain.

 42
           1908
        'Conqueror of the air -- hurrah!'

 In Friedrichshafen it was (old, damned cold. There was very little wind
 - the zeppelins could not take off in a wind - but November is not a time
 of year when anyone goes to the shores of the grim, grey Bodensee unless
 he has business there, Across the calm water of the lake, the Swiss side
 was clearly visible and the Alps were shining in the watery winter
 sunlight.
  Harald Winter had persuaded his wife to stay in the car. It was Winter's
  pride and joy. A huge seven -and-a-half litre Italian car, just like the
  one that Won the Peking-to-Paris Road Race with twenty days' lead! And
  yet, with its four-speed gearbox, so reliable and easy to use that Winter
  sometimes took the wheel himself. He'd had it parked down by the
  waterfront under the trees near the Schlosskirche, so that Veronica would
  have a good view of the airship and the shed that floated on the lake.
  She was well wrapped up, and under her feet was a copper foot-warmer that
  could be refilled with boiling water. And if she got too cold, the
  chauffeur would drive her back to the Kurgarten Hotel in Friedrichshafen,
  where the zeppelin people had provided for the Winter family a
  comfortable suite of rooms.
  But Harald Winter was at the lakeside, nearer to the activity. He was
  excited-, he would not have missed this occasion for all the world.
  Together with his two boys - Peter twelve and Pauh eight - he'd been
  given a place from which he could see everything. He would have been
  flying in the zeppelin but for the stringent terms of the life insurance
  that his father-in-law had made a condition of the loan.
  They'd seen the floating shed being revolved to eliminate any chance of
  a crosswind damaging the airship as it came from out of its tight-fitting
  hangar. Now they watched as the white motorboat took its distinguished
  guests out to LZ 3; the new modifications made her the finest of the
  airships. The crowd cheered spontaneously. After

                43
          Nineteen hundred and eight

 the tragic destruction ofLZ 4 last year - in a gesture that no foreigner
 would ever understand - the spontaneous generosity of the whole nation
 brought Count Zeppelin six million marks in donations. Much of the money had
 been sent within hours of the disaster. So these cheers were not just for
 the airship. There was something exhilarating in the atmosphere here today.
 The zeppelin was fast becoming a symbol of a new, exciting Germany, whose
 scientific inventions, paintings, music, and, more importantly, growing
 naval strength had made a real nation from a collection of small states. And
 not just a nation, but an international power of the first rank.
  'That's the Kaiser,' whispered Winter to his sons. 'He's wearing that long
  cloak or you'd see all his medals. Next to him is Prince Fdrstenberg and
  then Admiral Mfiller and General von Plessen. The thin one is the Crown
  Prince.'
  'Why isn't Count Zeppelin with them?' Peter asked. The boys were wearing
  grey flannel suits, specially tailored for the occasion, and large cloth
  caps that their mother thought were 'too grown-uplooking' for them.
  'He is,' said Winter. He was wearing a tight-fitting chesterfield and top
  hat, a formal outfit suited to someone who would be presented to the
  Kaiser. 'He's facing His Majesty, but he's not wearing his old white cap
  today; he's dressed up for th~ occasion.'
  They watched the airship come out on the surface of the lake, and then
  there was an interminable delay while the royal party inspected the
  airship, and another while it was given the final adjustments for the
  flight. After the Prince and Princess of Fdrstenberg were safely aboard,
  the ballast was offloaded piece by piece, until the moment came when the
  great silver machine shuddered and floated free.
  The roar of the engines echoed across the cold still water of the Bodensee,
  and then the nose tilted up and the airship climbed slowly into the grey
  sky and, rolling slightly as it went, headed down the lake. The airship's
  silver fabric was shining in the pale sunlight as it came steadily back to
  where the shore was black with onlookers. There were more loud,
  uncoordinated cheers as it passed over the boat from which the Kaiser and
  his entourage watched.
  But it was after the landing of LZ 3 that the boys were proudest of their
  father. For Harald Winter was invited to take his two sons out to the
  floating shed to watch Kaiser Wilhelm making his speech.
  Every available inch of space was used. Illustrious generals, spiked
  helmets on their heads and chests crammed with medals, and admirals with
  high, stiff collars and arms garlanded with gold, were

                44
         'Conqueror of the air - hurrah!'

 all crowded shoulder to shoulder. Standing behind von Zeppelin -the
 seventy-one-year-old ex-cavalry officer whose single-minded endeavour was
 today celebrated - they saw Dr Hugo Eckener, whose conversion to the
 zeppelin cause had made him even more zealous than his master. Next came
 DOrr, the engineer, Winter with the two children, and then senior design
 staff and an official from the engine factory.
  'In my name,' began the Kaiser suddenly, his voice unexpectedly shrill,
  'and in the name of our entire German people, I heartily congratulate
  Your Excellency on this magnificent work which you have so wonderfully
  displayed before me today. Our Fatherland can be proud to possess such
  a son- the greatest German of the twentieth century - who through his
  invention has brought us to a new point in the development of the human
  race.' At this, one or two of the generals and admirals nodded. One of
  the design staff edged aside to give little Pauli a better view.
  The Kaiser looked round his audience, drew himself up into an even more
  erect posture, and continued: 'It is not too much to say that we have
  today lived through one of the greatest moments in the evolution of human
  culture. I thank God, with all Germans, that He has considered our people
  worthy to name you as one of us. Might it be permitted to us all, as it
  has been to you, to be able to say with pride in the evening of our life,
  that we had been successful in serving our dear Fatherland so fruitfully.
  As a token of my admiring recognition, which certainly all your guests
  gathered here share with the entire German people, I bestow upon you
  herewith my high Order of the Black Eagle.'
  Count Zeppelin stepped one pace forward. Over his head the Kaiser put the
  sash, and then embraced him three times and called, 'His Excellency Count
  Zeppelin, the conqueror of the air - hurrah!'
  From the crowd in the distance, cheers could be heard. For Winter and his
  two sons it was a day they would never forget.

 It was already getting dark by the time Winter and the boys got back to
 the hotel in Friedrichshafen. Nanny was sent to have dinner alone in the
 restaurant so that the boys could have theirs served in the sitting room
 of their suite. Harald Winter was excited by the events of the day, and
 at times like this he liked to have a few extra moments with his sons.
  A solicitous waiter in a white jacket brought the meal and served it to
  the children course by course. There was turtle soup and breaded

                45
          Nineteen htindred and eight

 schnitzels with r6sti potatoes, which the Swiss, across the lake, did so
 perfectly. When no one was looking, Peter took forkfttls of Pauli's cabbage
 - Pauli hated cabbage - so that he wouldn't get into trouble for leaving it
 on his plate. And after that the waiter flamed crepes for them. It was the
 first time that their father had permitted them to have a dish containing
 alcohol and, despite the strong flavour, the boys devoured their pancakes
 with great joy, slowing their eating to prolong this happy day forever.
  Afte r Nanny had taken the boys off to bed, Harald had a chance to express
  his happiness to his wife. They were in the bedroom; Veronica's maid had
  gone. Harry was fully dressed in his evening clothes and his wife was
  making a final selection of jewellery. She had already put three different
  diamond brooches on her low-cut ballgown and rejected each. She was wearing
  a wonderful new Poiret dress from Paris' a simple tubular design with a
  high waist. She knew the new Paris look would create a sensation at the
  ball tonight. But on such a neoclassical design the jewellery would be
  all-important. She didn't want to get it wrong. 'What do you think, Harry?'
  She turned away from the mirror enough for him to see her hold the diamond-
  studded gold rose against her.
 'You're very beautiful, my darling,' he told her.
  'I'm thirty-four, Harry, and I feel every year of it. My shoes hurt
  already, and the evening has not even started.'
 'Change them,' said Harry.
 'The pink silk shoes would look absurd,' she said.
  He smiled. That was the way women were: the pink shoes looked absurd, the
  white ones hurt; there was really no answer. Perhaps women liked always to
  have some problem or other: perhaps it was the way they accounted for their
  disappointments. 'Did you see His Majesty?'
  'I got so cold, Harry. I just waited until the airship lifted away. Then I
  came back for a hot bath.'
 'The boys saw him. He looked magnificent. He's a great man.'
 'I'll just have to slip them off at dinner.'
  'The LZ 3 is to be delivered to the army right away. And as soon as the LZ
  5 is completed - and has done a twenty-four-hour endurance flight - they
  want that, too.'
 'I know.You told me. It's wonderful.'
 'You realize what it means, don't you?'
  'No," she said vaguely. She'd heard it all before. She wasn't listening to
  him; she was looking at her shoes.

                46
         'Conqueror of the air - hurrah!'

 'It means we'll be rich, darling.'
 'We're already rich, Harry.'
  'I mean really rich: tens of millions ... perhaps a hundred million before
  I'm finished.' He sat down, reaching behind him to flip his coat tails high
  in the air like a blackbird alighting. You could tell a lot about a man by
  the way he sat down, she decided. Her father always lifted his coat tails
  aside carefully, making sure they'd not be creased.
 'We're happy, Harry. That's the important thing.'
 'Dollars, I'm talking about, not Reichsmarks.'
  'What does it matter, Harry? We're happy, aren't we?' She looked up at him.
  Somewhere deep inside her there arose a desperate hope that he would
  embrace her and tell her that he would give up his other women. But she
  knew he would not do that. He needed the women, the way he needed the
  money. He had to be reassured, just as little Pauli needed so much
  reassurance all the time.
  'It doesn't matter to you,' he said, and she was surprised at the
  bitterness in his voice. He was like that; his mood could change suddenly
  for no accountable reason. 'You were born into wealth. You have your own
  bank account and your father's allowance every year. But now I'll have as
  much money as he's got. I won't have to kowtow to him all the time.'
  'I haven't noticed you displaying servile deference to Papa,' she said. She
  gave him all her attention.
  He ignored her remark. 'The army will buy more and more airships, and the
  navy will buy them, too. I had a word with the admiral today. They're
  already planning where the bases should be. Nordholz in Schleswig-Holstein
  will be the biggest one; then others nearby. Revolving sheds built on
  turntables - the North Sea is too rough for floating the hangars.'
  'Schleswig-Holstein? Why would they want them so far north? The weather
  there is not suited to airships. You said they'd need calm weather today.'
  'Use your brains, Veronica. Germany has the only practical flying machine
  in the world. The experimental little contraptions that the Wright brothers
  have made can scarcely lift the weight of a man. What use would those
  things be for bornbing?'
 'Bombing? Bombing England?'
  'This has been Count Zeppelin's idea right from the start. I thought
  everyone knew that. He conceived these huge rigid airships as a war-winning
  weapon.'
 'How ghastly!'

                47
          Nineteen hundred and eight

  'It's how progress comes. Leonardo da Vinci developed his great ideas
  only to help his masters fight wars.'
  'But bombing England, Harry? For God's sake. What are you saying?'
  'Don't get excited, Veronica. I wish I hadn't started talking about it.'
  ,War? War with England? But, Harry it is no time at all since the King
  ofEngland went to Berlin. The children saw them both going through
  Pariser Platz in the state coach. The Kaiser is King Edward's nephew.
  It's unthinkable. It's madness!' This came in a gabble. It was as if she
  thought that she had only her husband to persuade and everything would
  be all right.
  It was not an appropriate time to remind her that Kaiser Wilhelm made no
  secret of his haired for his uncle the English King. Only the previous
  year, Winter had been one of three hundred dinner guests to whom the
  Kaiser had confided that King Edward was 'a Satan'. But his wife needed
  assurance, so he went to her and put his arms tightly round her. By God,
  she was beautiful. Even at thirty-four she outshone some of the younger
  ones he bedded. He hated to see her distressed. 'There will be no war,
  my darling. I guarantee that. England will see sense When the time comes,
  England will see sense. The English are a nation of compromisers.'
 'I pray to God you're right.'
  'They say the mustard manufacturers get rich from the dabs of mustard
  people leave on their plates. And we'll get rich in the same way,
  darling. From selling the soldiers weapons they'll never use.'

 48
            1910
           The md of Valhalla

 Both boys liked to visit Orm. Harald Winter's widowed mother, Effi, lived
 in a comfortable little house on the coast, near Traverniinde. They went
 each summer, with Nanny, Mama and Mama's personal maid. From Berlin they
 always got a sleeping compartment in the train that left from Lehrter
 Bahnhof late at night and arrived at Lfibeck next morning. They alighted
 from the train and watched the porters pile the luggage onto carts. The
 children were taken to see the locomotive, a huge hissing brute that
 smelled of steam and oil and of the burned specks of coal that floated in
 the sunlit air. Omi always met them at the station in Ldbeck. But this
 time she wasn't there -only the taxi. It was a big one - a Benz
 sixty-horsepower Phaeton, more like a delivery van than a car - and it
 could seat sixteen people if they all crammed together. The driver was a
 white-haired old fellow named Hugo who would laboriously clamber up onto
 the roof, There, on its huge rack, he'd strap a dozen suitcases, Mama's
 ten hat boxes, a travelling rug inside which were rolled a selection of
 umbrellas and walking sticks and four black tin trunks so heavy that he'd
 almost overbalance with the weight of them.
  The house itself was a gloomy old place with lace curtains through which
  the northern sunlight struggled to make pale-grey shadows on the carpet.
  Even in the dusty conservatory that ran the length of the house, the
  warmth of the summer sun was hardly enough to stir the wasps from their
  winter torpor.
  Omi always wore black, the same sort of clothes she'd worn back in 1891,
  when Grandfather died. She spent most of the day in the room on the first
  floor: she read, she sewed, and for a lot of the time she just
  remembered. The room was furnished with her treasures and mementoes.
  There were two large jade dragons and a whole elephant tusk engraved with
  hunting scenes. There was a big photo of her with Opa on their wedding
  day, and portraits of other

                49
           Nineteen hundred and ten

 members of the family, and there were stuffed birds in glass cases and green
 plants that never bore flowers. She called the little room her salon and she
 received her visitors there - although visitors were few - and looked out
 the window across the Lfibeck Bight to the coast and the water that became
 the Baltic Sea.
  Peter and Paul wouldn't have looked forward so much to their visits had it
  not been for the Valhalla. The Valhalla was a small sailing boat that had
  once belonged to Opa. In his will Opa had bequeathed the little boat to a
  neighbour. But whenever the two Winter boys arrived, the Valhalla was
  theirs. The neighbour didn't know his sailing boat was called the Valhalla.
  On its bow was painted the same name that had been there when Winter bought
  it from a boat builder in Travemdride: Domino. But for the boys it was
  always called Valhalla: the hall in which slain warriors were received by
  Odin.
  The Valhalla gave the boys a unique chance to be away from any kind of
  supervision. They took little advantage of this cherished freedom except to
  laze and, more important, to talk and argue in that spirited and curiously
  intimate way that children only do when no adults are within earshot.
  'You'll change your mind again before you are fourteen,' Peter told his
  ten-year-old brother with all the mature authority of a fourteen-year-old.
  'I wouldn't go to cadet school; I'd hate it. I'm going to be an explorer.'
  He trailed his hand in the water. The wind had been swinging round for the
  last hour or more, so that Peter had had to adjust the sail constantly. Now
  the boat was moving fast through the choppy water of the bight. The sun was
  a white disc seen fitfully behind hazy clouds. There was little heat in the
  sun. Visitors did not come to this northern coastline to bask in the
  sunshine; it was a brisk climate, for active holidaymakers.
  The boys were dressed in yellow oilskins and floppy hats, just like the
  real sailors who sailed the big ships out of Kiel, along the coast from
  here. The younger boy, Paul, was crouched in the stern, hugging his knees.
  His hair was long and had become even more blond as he got older. People
  had said that his hair would darken, but adults had been wrong about that
  as about most other vital things he'd wanted to know. He said, 'You're good
  at mathematics. You'd have to be good at mathematics for exploring,
  wouldn't you?'
 'Yes,' said Peter, who'd recently come top in mathematics.
  'I'm no good at anything except sport: hockey, I'm good at hockey. Papa
  says the cadet school will be best for me. I'll never be any good at
  ma*hematics.'

                50
            The end of ValhaUa

 'No, you won't,' said Peter.
  Paul looked at his elder brother. It was a simple statement of fact: Paul
  was no good at mathematics and never would be. Adults an said that he was
  young and that soon he'd understand such scholastic subjects. The adults
  perhaps believed it, but it wasn't true, and Paul preferred to hear his
  brother's more brutal answer. 'And then after cadet school I'll be a
  soldier and wear a uniform like Georg.' Georg was a young soldier who was
  walking out with one of the housernaids in Berlin.
  'Not like Georg,' said Peter. 'You'll be an officer and ride a horse and
  parade down Unter den Linden and salute the Kaiser on his birthday.'
 'Will 1?" said Pauli. It didn't sound at all bad.
 'And go off and fight the Russians,' said Peter.
  'I wouldn't like that so much,' said Paul. 'It would mean leaving Mama
  and Papa.'He loved his parents as only a ten-year-old can. His father was
  the person he envied, respected and admired more than anyone in the whole
  world; and Mama was the one he ran to when Papa scolded him.
  'There's more wind now,' said Peter. The sail was drurnming and there
  were white crests on the waves. 'Take the helm while I fix the sail.'
  Big storm clouds moved across the hazy sun. It went dark quite suddenly,
  sc that the sky was almost black, with only a shining golden rim on the
  most distant of the clouds, and a bright shimmer of water along the
  horizon. 'Is it a storm?' said Paul. Two years ago they'd sailed through
  one of the sudden summer squalls for which this coast was noted. But that
  was in a bigger boat and with a skilful yachtsman in charge.
  'It's nothing,' said Peter. But as he said it, bigger waves struck the
  hull with enough force to make loud thumping noises and toss the small
  boat from side to side.
 'Pull the rudder round,' said Peter.
  The little blond boy responded manfully, heaving on the tiller to bring
  the boat head on to the waves. 'But we're heading in the wrong direction
  now. We're heading out to sea,' said Paul. The waves were getting bigger
  and bigger, and when he looked back towards Omi's house the coast was so
  far away that it was lost in the haze of rain. Paul was frightened. He
  watched his brother struggling with the sail. 'Do you want me to help?'
 'Stay at the tiller,' called Peter loudly. He'd heard the note of fear

                51
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 in his young brother's voice. He let go a rope for long enough to wave to
 encourage him. It was then that one of those freak waves that the sea keeps
 for such moments of carelessness hit the boat. The deck was slippery and
 Peter's wet shoes provided no grip upon the varnished woodwork. There was a
 yell and then Pauli saw the sea swaddle his brother into a dirty-green
 blanket of water and bundle him away into the fast-moving currents.
  Peter had never been a strong swimmer and hit by half a ton of icy-cold sea
  water, the breath knocked out of his lungs, he opened his mouth. Instead of
  the air he needed, he swallowed cold salty water, and felt his stomach
  retch at the taste of it. Sucked down into the cold water, he somersaulted
  through a dim green world until he no longer knew which way was up.
  'Peter! Peter!' There was nothing but milky-looking waves and mist, and the
  boat raced on before the gusting wind. Pauli jumped to his feet to pull the
  sail down, and before he could move aside the tiller was torn from his
  hands strongly enough to whack him across the leg, so that he cried out
  with the pain of it. He couldn't reef in the sail, he knew he couldn't: it
  was something his brother always attended to. 'Peter! Please, God, help
  Peter.'
  Some distance away from the boat, Peter came to the surface, spluttering
  and desperately flailing his arms so that he got no support from the water.
  Still encumbered in his yellow oilskin jacket, he slid down again into the
  hateful green, chilly realm from which he'd just fought his way. He closed
  his mouth only just in time to avoid a second lungful of sea water, and let
  the water close over him, twisting his arms in a futile attempt to claw his
  way back to the surface. The green water darkened and went black.
  When Peter saw daylight again, the waves were still high enough to smash
  across his head. Like leaden pillows, they beat him senseless and scattered
  a million grey spumy feathers across the heaving sea. He could see no
  farther than the next wave and hear nothing but the roar of the wind and
  the crash of water. It seemed like hours since he'd been washed overboard,
  and - although it was no more than three minutes - he was physically unable
  to save himself. His small body had already lost heat, till his feet were
  numb and his fingers stiffening. Besides the temperature drop, his body was
  bruised and battered by the waves, and his stomach was retching and
  revolting at the intake of cold salty water.
  There was no sign of the Valhalla, but even had it been close there would
  have been little chance of Peter's catching sight of it through

                52
            The end of Valhalla

 the grey-green waves and the white, rainy mist that swirled above them.
  No one ever discovered why little Pauli jumped off the stem of the Valhalla
  and into the raging water that frightened him so much. Many years later
  explanations were offered: his wife said it was a desperate wish to destroy
  himself; a prison psychologist interpreted it as some sort of baptismal
  desire; and Peter - who heard Pauli talk about it in his sleep - said it
  was straightforward heroism and in keeping with Pauli's desire to be a
  soldier. Pauli himself said it was fear that drove him from the safety of
  the boat into the water; he felt safer with his brother in the sea than
  alone on the boat. But that was typical of Pauli, who tried to make a joke
  out of everything.
  Little Pauli was a strong swimmer and unlike his brother, he was able to
  divest himself of the oilskin and prepare himself for both the coldness and
  the strength ofthe currents into which he plunged. But, like his brother,
  he was soon disoriented, and couldn't see past the big waves that washed
  over him constantly. He swam - or, rather, flailed the heaving ocean top -
  hoping he was heading back towards the coast. Above him the clouds raced
  overhead at a speed that made him dizzy.
  The squall kept moving. It passed over them as quickly as it had come,
  moving out towards Bornholm and Sweden's southern coast. The racing clouds
  parted enough to let sunlight flicker across the waves, and then Pauli
  caught sight of the yellow bundle that was Peter.
  Had Peter been completely conscious, it's unlikely that the smaller child
  would have been able to support his brother. All drowning animals panic;
  they fight and thrash and often kill anything that comes to save them. But
  Peter was long past that stage. He'd given up trying to survive, and now
  the cold water had produced in him that drowsiness that is the merciful
  prelude to exposure and death.
  Peter's yellow oilskin had kept him afloat. Air was trapped in the back of
  it, and this had pulled him to the surface when all his will to float had
  gone. They floated together, Pauli's arm hooked round his brother's neck,
  the pose of an attacker rather than a saviour, and the other arm trying to
  move them along. The coast was a long way away. Pauli glimpsed it now and
  again between the waves. There was no chance of swinun-ing that far, even
  without a comatose brother to support.
  They were floating there for a long time before anything came into sight.
  It was a boy at the oars of a brightly painted rowboat, trying to

                53
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 get to the Valhalla, who saw first a yellow floppy hat in the water, and
 then the children, too The oarsman was little more than a child himself, but
 he pulled the two children out of the water and into his boat with the easy
 skiff that had come from doing the same thing with his big black mongrel
 dog, which now sat in the front of the boat, watching the rescue.
  The youth who'd rescued them was a typical village child: hair cut close to
  the scalp to avoid lice and nits; teeth uneven, broken and missing- strong
  arms and heavy shoulders, his skin darkened by the outdoo~. Only his height
  and broad chest distinguished him from the other village youths, that and
  the ability to read well. To what extent it was his height, and to what
  extent his literacy, that gave him his air of superiority was debated. But
  there was a strength within him that was apparent to all, a drive that the
  priest - in a moment of weakness - had once described as 'demoniacal'.
  The seventeen-year-old Fritz Esser looked at the two halfdrowned children
  huddled together in the bottom of his boat and -despite the pitiful
  retching of Peter and the shivers that convulsed Pauli's whole body -
  decided they were not close to death. He rowed out to where the poor old
  Valhalla had settled low into the water, its torn sail trailing overboard
  and its rudder carried away. 'It will not last long,' he said, 'it's
  holed.' Pauli managed to peer over the edge of the rowboat to see what was
  left of their lovely Valhalla, but Peter was past caring. Esser, aided by
  the black mongrel, which ran up and down the boat and barked, tried to get
  the Valhalla in tow, but his line was not long enough, and finally he
  decided to get the two survivors back to dry land.
  He put them in an old boat shed on the beach. It was a dark, smelly place-,
  the only daylight came through the chinks in its ill-fitting boards. Inside
  there was space enough for three rowboats, but it was evident that only one
  boat was ever stored here, for most of the interior was littered with
  rubbish. There were furry pieces of animal hide stretched on racks to dry.
  There was flotsam, too: a life preserver lettered 'Germania - Kiel', tom
  pieces of sails and old sacks, broken oars and broken crates and barrels of
  various sizes arranged like seats around a small pot-bellied iron stove.
  Esser wrapped sacking round the boys and poked inside the stove until the
  sparks began to fly, then tossed some small pieces of driftwood into it and
  slammed it shut with a loud clang. The necessity of closing the stove
  became apparent as smoke from the damp wood issued out of the broken
  chimney. It was only after the

                54
            The end of Valhalla

 fire was going that the boy spoke to them. 'You're the Berlin kids, aren't
 you? You're from the big house where old Schuster does the garden. Old Frau
 Winter. Are you her grandchildren?' He didn't wait to hear their reply; he
 seldom asked real questions, they found out soon enough. 'You come here with
 your mother, and the flunkeys, and your father comes sometimes, always in
 some big new automobile.'
  Peter and Pauli were huddled together under some sacking that smelled of
  salt and decaying fish. As the stove flickered into life, and the air
  wartned, the hut became more and more foul. But the children didn't notice
  the odour of old fish or the stink of the tanned hides. They clung
  together, cold, wet and exhausted; Pauli was looking at the flames in the
  tiny grate, but Peter's eyes were tightly closed as he listened to Fritz
  Esser's hard and roughly accented voice.
  'I hate the rich,' Esser said. 'But soon we'll break the bonds of slavery.'
  'How will you do that?' asked Pauli, who, typically, was recovering quickly
  from his ordeal. It sounded interesting, like something from his ior Magic
  Tricks a Bright Boy Can Do.
  Esser wracked his brains to remember what the speaker from the German
  Social Democratic Party had actually said. 'Capitalism will perish just as
  the dinosaurs perished, collapsing under the weight of its own
  contradictions. Then the working masses will usher in the golden age of
  socialism.'
  Half drowned he might be, but Pauli could perceive the majesty of that
  pronouncement. 'Is that how the dinosaurs perished?'he asked.
  'You can scoff,' said Esser. 'We're used to the sneers of the ruling
  classes. But when blood is flowing in the gutters, the laughing will stop.,
  Pauli had not intended to scoff but decided against saying so while the
  role of scoffer commanded such a measure of Esser's respect.
  'We have a million members,' Esser continued. He spat at the stove and the
  spittle exploded in steam. 'We're the largest political party in the world.
  Soon they'll start to arm the workers and we'll fight to get a proper
  Marxist government.'
  'Where did you find out all this?' Pauli asked. It sounded frightening but
  the strange boy was not unfriendly: just superior. His chin was dimpled and
  his brown eyes deep and intense.
  'I go to meetings with my father. He's been a member of the SPD for nearly
  ten years. Last year Karl Liebknecht came here to give a

                55
           Nineteen hundred and ten

 speech. Liebknecht understands that blood must flow. My father says
 Liebknecht is a dangerous man, but my uncle says Liebknecht will lead the
 workers to victory.'
  'Did your father tell you about the dinosaurs and the blood in the streets
  and all that?' asked Pauli.
  'No. He's soft,' said Esser. He stoked the fire to make it flare. 'My
  father still believes in historical evolution. He believes that soon we'll
  have enough deputies in the Reichstag to challenge the Kaiser's power. If
  Germany had a proper parliamentary democracy, we'd already be running the
  country.'
  Pauli looked at his saviour with new respect. It would be just as well to
  remain friends with a boy who was so near to running the country. Peter had
  opened his eyes. He had not so far joined the conversation, but it was
  Peter who, having studied Fritz Esser, now identified him. 'You're the son
  of the pig man, aren't you?'
 'Yes, what of it?' said Fritz Esser defensively.
  'Nothing,' said Peter. 'I just recognized you, that's all.' Peter coughed
  and was almost sick. The salt water was still nauseating him, and his skin
  was green and clammy to the touch, as Pauli found when he hugged his
  brother protectively.
  For Pauli and Peter - and for many other local children - the pig man was
  a figure of rumour and awful speculation. A small thickset figure with
  muscular limbs and scarred hands, he was not unlike some of the more
  fearful illustrations in their books of so-called fairy stories. The 'pig
  man' wore long sharp knives on his belt and went from village to village
  slaughtering pigs for owners too squeamish, or too inexperienced with a
  knife, to kill their pigs for themselves. He was to be seen sometimes down
  by the pond engaged on the lengthy and laborious task of washing the
  entrails and salting them for sausage making. So this was the son of the
  pig man. This was a boy who called the pig man 'soft'.
  In an unexpected spontaneous gesture of appreciation, Pauli said goodbye to
  Fritz Esser with a hug. Forever after, Pauli regarded Fritz Esser as the
  one who'd saved his life. But Peter's goodbye was more restrained, his
  thanks less effusive. For Peter had already decided that little Pauli was
  his one and only saviour. These varying attitudes that the two boys had to
  the traumatic events of that terrible day were to affect their entire
  lives. And the life of Fritz Esser, too.
  It was the pig man himself who took the boys home. Still wrapped in the
  fusty, stinking old sacks that gave so tittle protection from the
  remorseless Baltic wind, they rode on the back of his home-made cart

                56
            The end of Valhalla

 drawn by his weary horse. It was more than seven kilometres along the
 coast road, which was in fact only a deeply rutted cart track. The smcH
 of rancid fish and pork turned their stomachs and they were jolted over
 every rut, bump, and pothole all the way. When they got to Omi's, the pig
 man and his son were given a bright new twentymark gold coin and sent away
 with muted thanks.
  It was only after the Essers had gone that the two children were scolded.
  Who would pay for the boat? How did they come to fall overboard? Didn't
  they see that a storm was coming up? How could they not come directly
  home after being rescued? All three women asked them more or less the
  same questions; only the manner of asking was different. First came the
  regimental coldness of Ouii's interrogation, then the operatic hysteria
  of Mama's, and finally that of their Scots nanny, who, after their hot
  bath with carbotic soap, put them under the cold shower and towelled them
  until their skin was pink and sore.
  The children took their chastisings meekly. They knew that such anger was
  just one of many curious ways in which grownups manifested their love.
  And they'd long ago learned how to wear a look of contrition while
  thinking of other things.
  Now that they no longer had the Valhalla, the children spent their days
  on the beach. They walked back along the coast road to Fritz Esser's
  boathouse. Very early each morning, Esser went out in his boat to fish.
  He caught little: he had neither tempting bait, good nets, nor the skills
  and patience of the successful fisherman.
  The boys always arrived in time to welcome him back. But Fritz never
  showed any disappointment when his long hours of work had provided
  nothing in return. He was always able to manage the crooked smile that
  revealed a wide mouth crowded with teeth. Every day, of course, the
  children hoped to see him towing the Valhalla back to them. And each day
  their hopes diminished, until finally they went to Fritz just for
  something to do.
  Despite the disparity in age, Fritz Esser enjoyed the company of the two
  children. He let them help him with painting and repairing the boats he
  was paid to look after. He showed them how to sew up torn sails and caulk
  the seams of boats that belonged to holidaymakers who7d left them too
  long out of the water. And all the time he lectured them with the
  political ideas that came from the booklets he read and the conversations
  he liked to listen to in the bar of the Golden Pheasant on the
  Traverniinde road, and to the words of his hero Karl Liebknecht.

                57
           Nineteen hundred and ten

  At the back of the Golden Pheasant there was a big room that was used for
  weddings and christenings and meetings of the SPD. That was where, last
  year, Fritz had listened enraptured to the fiery little Karl Liebknecht.
  In his pince-nez, neatly shaped black moustache, well-brushed black suit
  and high, stiff collar, this thirty-nine-yearold member of the Prussian
  Diet looked more like a clerk than a revolutionary, but from his very
  first words his speech revealed his passions. He denounced the
  international armaments industry, 'the clique who mint gold from
  discord'. He denounced the Kaiser and Bendlerstrasse, where the
  generals'at this very moment are planning the next war'. He denounced the
  Russian Tsar and all the 'parasites' that made up Europe's royal
  families. He denounced the capitalists who owned the factories and the
  police who were their lackeys. He denounced the rich for exploiting their
  riches and the poor for enduring their poverty.
  A big crowd filled the Golden Pheasant that Friday evening. Most of them
  had come because he was the son of the great Wilhelm Liebknecht (close
  friend of Karl Marx and a leader of the short-lived revolutionary
  republic of Baden), not because they wanted to hear this arrogant and
  unattractive man, whose only notable achievement so far was to have
  served an eighteen-month prison sentence for treason.
  Karl Liebknecht had none of the qualities that a successful orator must
  have. His clothes made him look more like one of the cold-eyed
  bureaucrats they all feared and detested than like a man who would lead
  them to the golden land they were looking for. His educated Hochdeutsch
  and his manner - urban if not urbane - set him apart from this audience
  of fishermen and agricultural workers. Liebknecht's message didn't appeal
  to men who were looking for immediate improvement in their working
  conditions rather than an ultimate world revolution.
  Only the very young have time enough for the sort of promises that Karl
  Liebknecht gave his audience that night. And only a few local youngsters
  like Fritz Esser were moved by this strange man.
  Although the Winter boys had only a hazy idea of what it was all about,
  something of the excitement that Fritz Esser showed was communicated to
  them. And Fritz liked striding up and down declaiming the principles of
  Marxism to this enraptured audience of two. Pauh loved the sounds of
  Esser's words, though the fiery rhetoric of hatred held no meaning for
  him. Peter sensed the underlying belligerence, but Fritz Esser's flashes
  of easy humour and

                58
            The end of Valhalla

 his simple charm won him over. And when Esser told them that as fellow
 conspirators they mustn't repeat a word of what he said to the policeman,
 to their family, to any of their household, or even to anyone else in the
 village in case Fritz was sent to prison, the two boys were totally
 devoted to him. What a wonderful thing it was to share a secret with a boy
 who was almost a man. And what a secret it was!
  During the final week of their summer vacation, 'Uncle Glenn' arrived.
  Veronica's younger brother, Glenn Rensselaer, had a habit of turning up
  unexpectedly all over the world. The first Veronica heard about his visit
  to Europe was a telegram from the post office of a liner due to arrive
  at Hamburg next day: 'Arriving Thursday with friend. Love, Glenn.' There
  was a flurry of domestic preparations and for Veronica, speculation, too.
  Who was the friend and was this just Glenn's jocular way of announcing
  that he had come to Europe on his honeymoon?
  The speculation ended when Glenn arrived Friday noon, together with an
  Englishman named Alan Piper. They'd met on the ship coming over from New
  York: 'The Kaiserin Auguste Victoria: twenty-five thousand tons. The
  biggest liner in the world and she's German.' It was typical of Glenn
  that he delighted in the achievements of the Old World almost as much as
  those of his own countrymen. Glenn had insisted that, since Piper had a
  month or two to spare before reporting back to the Colonial Office in
  London, he should accompany him on his tour of Germany, beginning at the
  house in Traverniffide.
  Alan 'Boy' Piper spent much of his time apologizing for all the extra
  work and trouble he was causing to the household. He apologized to
  Veronica so many times that Glenn finally said, 'Don't be so goddamned
  British. They have slaves to do all the work in this country. And
  Veronica loves a chance to speak a civilized language.'
  He was right about his sister. Her mother-in-law had not been well for
  a few days and was allowed only bread and beef broth, having it served
  in her upstairs room. So Veronica played hostess to the unexpected house
  guests, and there was no need to speak anything but English.
  Veronica adored her young brother but she was also enchanted by the shy
  Englishman. He was a little older than Veronica, an unconventionally
  handsome man with short brown - almost gingerish - hair, a lean bony
  face, and curiously youthful features that had long ago earned him his
  nickname 'Boy'. He insisted that his life had

                59
           Nineteen hundred and ten

 been uneventful compared with her brother's. From Merton College, Oxford,
 he'd gone to South Africa, and stayed there working as a colonial government
 official, although, as Glenn pointed out, he'd been there right through some
 of the bloodiest encounters of the Boer War.
 'He's a soldier of fortune, like me,' said Glenn Rensselaer.
  'Nothing as exciting as that, I'm afraid,' said Piper modestly. 'My father
  was a government official in Africa, and so far I have simply followed in
  his footsteps.' He smiled. He had the face of a youngster - fresh and
  optimistic, and unwrinkled despite the African sun.
  'So what are you doing in Germany, Mr Piper?'said Veronica. She took care
  to address him as 'Mr Piper', and yet there was a mocking note in her voice
  that some might have said was flirtatious. 'Is it another excursion among
  the natives?'
  'Indeed not, Mrs Winter. I'm on leave. This visit to Germany, as delightful
  as it is already proving to be, was quite unplanned. When I returned to
  London to start this year's leave of absence, I was very disappointed to
  learn that I would not be returning to Africa. The two Boer Republics we
  fought, and the Cape and Natal, become what is to be called the Union of
  South Africa. I would like to have been there to see it.'
 'South Africa's loss is our gain,' said Glenn.
 'I will drink to that,' said Veronica.
  Ile Englishman picked up his glass, looked at her and saw those wonderful
  smoky-grey eyes, and, after a fleeting moment, smiled.
  Veronica looked down as she drank her wine, and yet she could feel the
  Englishman's eyes upon her and despite herself, she shivered.
  'My life has not been nearly so colourful. as your brother's, Mrs Winter.,
  I believe him to be one of the most extraordinary men I've ever inet.'
  'Really?' She was pleased to look at her brother and smile. 'What have you
  been up to, Glenn?'
  Piper answered for him. 'He's been everywhere and done everything. He's
  even panned for gold on the Klondike.'
  'And a lot of good it did me: I finally sold out my claims for three
  hundred dollars and some supplies.'
  'He's worked for Henry Ford and turned down a job with the U. S. Army team
  that surveyed the Panama Canal. He's broken horses, repaired automobiles,
  and even flown an aeroplane.'
  'An airplane?' said Veronica; even she could still be surprised by Glenn's
  doings.

                6o
            The end of Valhalla

  'Just the once,' said Glenn. He bent forward and forked some more cold
  pork, without waiting for the table maid to offer it, trying to cover his
  embarrassment at Piper's laudatory remarks. Having swallowedit, he took
  a sip of wine and wiped his lips. 'There was a guy on the ship coming
  over, a rancher. I'd worked for him a couple of times. He spent half the
  voyage filling Boy's head with tales about me. You know how Texans like
  to spin a yarn to a Limey.'
  'And why exactly are you in Germany, Glenn?' she asked her brother.
  'Dad told me that your husband knows Count Zeppelin. I was hoping he'd
  arrange an introduction for me.'
  'Count Zeppelin? Is he so famous that they've heard of him back home?'
  'They've sure heard of his airships,' said Glenn. 'Last September there
  was some kind of air show in Berlin. . . .'
  'Yes,' said Veronica. 'Berliner Flugwoche at Johannisthal. There was a
  prize of one hundred and fifty thousand marks. Harald took the boys. They
  were there when an airplane flew from Tempelhof to Johannisthal: ten
  kilometres!'
  'Orville Wright was in Berlin at that time. And down in Frankfurt they
  had an airship meet: the Internationale Luftschiffahrt Ausstellung.' He
  pronounced the German words with difficulty. 'And suddenly a lot of
  people are taking a new interest in airships: especially big rigid
  airships. I want to see one of them, fly in one and find out what they're
  like to handle.'
  'But surely you heard - the latest one, Deutschland, only lasted a couple
  of weeks. It's a complete wreck. There were amazing pictures in the
  newspapers.'
  'Oh, sure LZ 7: 1 know about that. But he still has the LZ 6 flying, and
  a trip in that will suit me fine.'
  Veronica turned to the Englishman. 'And you, Mr Piper, do you share this
  obsession with flying machines that seems to be sweeping the world?'
 'Up to a point, Mrs Winter.'
  'He's just being polite,'said her brother. 'I talked him into coming with
  me to see the zeps, because he can speak the lingo. I can't speak German,
  and I don't suppose Count von Zeppelin is going to be able to speak
  English.'
  'You'd better learn not to call him Count von Zeppelin: von Zeppelin or
  Count Zeppelin, but not both together.'
 'Is that so?' said Glenn thoughtfully. 'I know these Europeans get

                6 1
           Nineteen hundred and ten

 dam mad if you get their tides wrong. There was an Italian countess I once
 met in Mexico City. She wanted me to . . .'He stopped, having suddenly
 decided not to go into detail.
  Veronica laughed. She realized that the account of Glenn's colourful
  experiences with horses, motorcars and canals had been carefully edited in
  order not to offend her.
  'And so you speak German, Mr Piper?' she asked as the servants cleared the
  plates.
  'For my work I had to learn some Cape Dutch, Mrs Winter. It seemed foolish
  not to persevere with my German.'
  'He reads the kind of intellectual stuff you like, Veronica. I offered him
  my brand-new cony of Lord_7im when he was sitting alongside me on the
  promenade deck. And dam me if he didn't wave it away. He said he doesn't
  read Conrad because he doesn't stretch the mind. I felt like punching him
  in the ear. That's how we first got talking.'
  Piper - even after his three months' stay in America - had still not got
  used to this direct style of speaking. 'I didn't exactly say that, Glenn.
  . . .'
  'He's reading Das Stunden-Buch in German!' added Glenn Rensselaer. 'It took
  me half an hour to learn how to pronounce the tide.' Veronica noticed the
  mutual regard of the two men; somehow friendships between women didn't
  flourish so easily and quickly.
  'I'm afraid that Rilke is too much for me,'Piper admitted. 'All that
  symbolic imagery requires a better knowledge of Germany and Germans.'
 'Oh, but it's a wonderful book,' said Veronica. 'Don't give up.'
  'I've tried so hard. The chapter I'm reading now: I've reread it,
  dictionary in hand, at least four times.'
  'Perhaps if we read a few pages together . Veronica stopped and hurriedly
  poured cream over the sliced peach. She hadn't meant to say that.... She
  made her racing mind stop. She'd never looked at, not even thought of,
  another man in all the years she'd been married. When she first discovered
  that Harry had installed that very young girl Martha in an apartment in
  Vienna, she'd gone to pray in the Votivkirche' and so steal a glimpse at
  the street where his mistress was living. Yet, even in that hour of
  anguish, she had never thought of betraying him. But then she'd never met
  a man who might be able to tempt her to betrayal. Now, suddenly, she
  realized that.
  'That would be most civil of you, Mrs Winter,' said the Englishman.
  'Sometimes it's just a matter of understanding the heart of the author.
  Just a few pages property understood might open a new world to me.'

                62
            The end of Valhalla

  'I'm not a scholar,' said Veronica, 'I'm a thirty-five-year-old
  Hausfrau.' It was her clumsy attempt to change direction.
  'I can't let that go unchallenged,' said Piper. 'I cannot think of anyone
  in the world more likely to change my life.'

 On the day that Father arrived, it rained without stopping. Not just the
 cold, thin drizzle through which the boys would walk, bathe in the ocean,
 or, in the happier days of the Valhalla, sail. It fell in great vertical
 sheets of water from slow-moving grey clouds that came from the North Sea
 to rain upon the bight.
  While everyone prepared for Harald Winter's arrival, the boys wandered
  through the house, getting in everyone's way and feeling low. On previous
  days, Uncle Glenn or his English friend Mr Piper had kept them
  entertained with stories, tricks and card games. Pauli particularly liked
  Mr Piper's magic and even learned to do some of the conjuring tricks
  himself. But today the two houseguests; had gone to took at the wonderful
  old city of Ldbeck and were not expected back until evening. By that time
  Father would have arrived.
  Peter finally found something to do. Cook let him help prepare the
  vegetables. She needed the extra hand because the scullery maid was sick
  and the kitchen maid had been ordered away to ready the rooms on the
  second floor that Harald Winter and his wife used when both were there
  together.
  After a brusque rejection by his grandmother, who wanted to sleep, Paul
  went in search of his mother. He found her in the turret room at the top
  of the house. It was a tiny circular room with a wonderful view of the
  countryside. This was where she liked to sleep when Father wasn't with
  them. She was looking through her clothes in the wardrobe, taking her
  dresses out one by one and examining them before putting them on the bed
  for her maid to take to the other bedroom.
  Paul stared at his mother. She did not look well. Her face was white but
  her eyes were reddened as if she'd been crying. 'What is it?' she said.
  She sounded angry.
 'Nothing,' said little Pauli. 'Can I help you, Mama?'
  'Not really, darting,' she replied. Then, seeing Pauli's disappointment,
  she said, 'You can take my jewellery case downstairs. It will save Hanna
  a journey.'
  Pauli always coveted his mother's jewellery case. It was made of
  beautifulblue leather and lined with soft blue velvet. Inside, it was
  fitted with little drawers and soft pockets and velvet fingers upon

                63
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 which Mama's rings were fitted. Pauli couldn't resist playing with an the
 fittings of the box. It was such fun to pull out each drawer and see the
 sparkling diamond brooches or strings of pearls lying within. He looked at
 Mama, but she was completely occupied with her dresses -choosing one for
 Papa's return, Pauli decided. He continued to play with the jewel box.
 Suppose it was a pirate ship and each drawer concealed a cannon, and as some
 unsuspecting boat came along . . . Oh dear: the contents of a drawer fell
 onto the carpet. How clumsy he was. He felt sure he would be scolded, but
 today it seemed as if nothing could divert her attention from her dresses.
  Pauli picked up the tiny gold earrings, the large gold earrings, the pearl
  earrings, the diamond earrings that Mama wore only with her long dresses
  and pendant earrings. Two of each. He counted them again and then saw a
  silver earring on the carpet. Then there must be another ... rolled under
  the bed, no doubt. He went flat on the floor to find it. Yes, there it was.
  And . . . there was something else there too. He pulled it out. A
  wristwatch. A large gold wristwatch with a seconds hand.
 'What are you doing, Pauli?'
 'I found a watch, Mama.'
 'What do you mean, Pauli?'
  'I found it under the bed, Mama.' He showed her the wristwatch proudly. It
  was a fine Swiss model with a leather strap and roman numerals like the
  church clock.
 'Oh my God!' said his mother.
  'It belongs to Mr Piper, Mama. I noticed him wearing it.' He looked at his
  mother. He'd never seen her so horror-struck.
  'Yes,'she said. 'I borrowed it from him. Mine stopped last night at
  dinner.'
 'Shall I give it to him?' said Pauli.
  'No, give it to me, Pauli. I'll tell the chambermaid to put it in his
  room.'
 'I know which is his room, Mama.'
  'Give it to me, Pauli. He might be angry if he hears I've dropped it on the
  floor.'
 'I won't tell him, Mama.'
  'That's best, Pauli.' His mother clutched the watch very tight and closed
  her eyes, the way children do when making a wish.

 Three days after Papa arrived, everyone went to Kiel and stayed in a hotel.
 It was a momentous trip. Mama wore her new ankle-length

                64
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 motoring coat and gauntlet gloves. Papa drove the car. Its technology was
 no longer new, but he loved the big yellow Itala and clung to it, even
 though some people thought he should drive a German car. It was the first
 time he'd taken the wheel for such a long journey, but he knew that Glenn
 Rensselaer was able to make running repairs and the chauffeur was ordered
 to stay near the telephone at On-ti's house just in case something went
 very badly wrong. Glenn sat beside Harald Winter, the Englishman and Marna
 at the back, the two children in the folding seats. There were no servants
 with them. The servants had gone by train. As Harald Winter said, 'It will
 be an adventure.'
  It was not just an excursion. Harald Winter didn't make excursions: he
  had an appointment in the Imperial Dockyard. The next day, while a sea
  mist cloaked the waterfront and muffled the sounds of the dockyards, he
  met with a young Korvettenkapitiin and two civilian officials of the
  purchasing board of the Imperial German Navy. Harald Winter had not been
  forthcoming about the subject of his discussion. It concerned the
  prospect of a naval airship programme, and that was categorized as
  secret. The department was already named; it was to be the Imperial Naval
  Airship Division -but so far it consisted of little beyond a name on the
  door of one small room on the wrong side of the office block. Last year
  the appearance ;f the German army's airship Z II at the ILA show in
  Frankfurt am Main had made the future seem rosy. But this year everything
  had gone wrong. The destruction of that same airship - one of the army's
  two zeppelins - in a storm near Weilburg an der Lahn in April was
  followed by the loss of Count Zeppelin's newly built Deutschland in June.
  To make matters worse, a competitor of Zeppelin had built a semirigid
  airship that not only beat Zeppelin's endurance record by over an hour
  but arrived at the autumn army manoeuvres complete with its own mobile
  canvas shed. Now all the admirals and bureaucrats who'd delayed the
  decisions about purchasing zeppelins were congratulating themselves upon
  their farsightedness.
  But while Harald Winter was sitting across the table from the earnest
  young naval officer and two blank-faced officials, his wife, children and
  guests were on the waterfront admiring the assembled might of the new
  Germany navy.
  'Look at them,' said Glenn Rensselaer, indicating a dozen great grey
  phantoms just visible through the mist. 'German shipyards have never been
  so busy. The one anchored on the right is a dreadnought.' He used his
  field glasses but failed to read any name on the warship.

                65
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  'Three dreadnoughts last year, and four built the year before that,' said
  Piper. Today the Englishman was looking like a typical holidaymaker, in his
  striped blazer and straw hat. 'That makes the German navy exactly equal to
  the strength of the Royal Navy.' He took the glasses Glenn Rensselaer
  handed him but didn't use them to look at the ships.
  'No,' said Glenn. 'You British have eight dreadnoughts and at least three
  more on the slipways.' He wore a cream pin-striped flannel suit with his
  straw boater at an angle on his head. The incoming sea-mist had made it too
  cold for such summer attire on this promenade. He had a long yellow scarf
  and now he wound it twice round his neck. Veronica noticed and wished she'd
  chosen something warmer. The cotton dress with its broderie anglaise
  trimmings was made specially for this holiday, but the dressmaker had not
  calculated on the spell of cold weather.
 The Englishman nodded. 'Perhaps you're right.'
 'And what exactly is a dreadnought?' said Veronica.
  'Oh, Mama!' said young Peter, looking back from where he was climbing on
  the railing to get a better view. 'Everyone knows what a dreadnought is.'
  Little Pauh climbed up beside his brother.
 'It's a new type of battleship,' said the ever-attentive Piper.
 'They all look the same to me,' said Veronica.
  'Maybe they do,' said Rensselaer, 'but when the British built HMS
  Dreadnought in i9o6 it made every other capital ship obsolete.
  Steam-turbine engines, bigger guns and all to a common calibre: faster and
  more deadly than anything previously built. Now the strength of any navy is
  measured by the number of dreadnoughts they have. It took that Kaiser of
  yours a couple of years to get started, but now he'll bust a gut rather
  than let the Royal Navy outgun him.'
  'Get down, Peter,' Veronica called to her son. 'You'll make your trousers
  dirty and we haven't brought any more with us.' The Englishman smiled at
  her. 'It's so difficult without the servants,' said Veronica.
  Glenn Rensselaer took back his field glasses again and studied the big
  dreadnought. 'Do you think they brought her through the canal, or is she
  too big?' Now that the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal directly connected Germany's North
  Sea Fleet with the Baltic Fleet, it had vastly increased Germany's naval
  potential. Still using the field glasses, Glenn Rensselaer eventually
  answered his own question: 'Too big, I think. That's probably why they are
  working so hard to make it wider and deeper.'Even without the glasses one
  could see the

                66
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 sailors moving about the deck in their white summer uniforms. From the
 size of the sailors it was easy to judge the dimensions of the huge
 battleship. 'She's big,' said Glenn Rensselaer, 'very big.'
  Veronica, hampered by the fashionable hobble skirt, had walked on and now
  Piper followed her. The crisp cotton dress with its high tight lace
  collar and the lovely new hat with silk bow and artificial flowers made
  her look wonderful, and she knew it. The others were out of earshot by
  the time he caught up with her. It was the first chance for Veronica to
  speak privately with the Englishman since her husband had arrived, but
  she said only, 'I wish my brother wouldn't speak so disrespectfully of
  His Majesty. It has such a bad effect on the children.'
  'I know, Mrs Winter, but your brother means no harm, I'm sure of that.'
  He smiled at her and she smiled back.
  She felt very happy. It really didn't matter what was said. She loved the
  Englishman and he loved her. There was no need to say it. There was no
  need to say anything at all, really.

 They'd hoped that the mist would lift, but it was one of those days when
 the Kiel Bight remains shrouded in fog until nightfall. When they got back
 to the hotel, Harry had still not returned from his meeting. Alan Piper
 ordered tea. Glenn chaffed him about this curious English ritual, but they
 all sat together in the glass-sided lounge, exchanging small talk, until
 the Englishman took the restless boys outside to the promenade for another
 look at the warships.
  Left without them in the lounge, Veronica turned to her brother and said,
  'There won't be a war, will there, Glenn?'
  He looked at her and took his time before replying. 'Dad is convinced
  that there will be. The folks would like you to come back home; I guess
  they tell you that in their letters.'
  'Yes, they do.' She poured more tea for herself. She didn't want it, but
  she was nervous.
  'This year you didn't get to see them in London.' He sat back in the
  armchair and crossed his legs. Big bony skull, wide cheekbones, and easy
  smile - sometimes he looked so like Father, and so like little Paul.
  She'd not noticed before how much of a Rensselaer her son looked.
  'It would be so easy for them to come here..'She didn't want to talk
  about her parents. It would make her feel guilty, and she didn't want to
  feel guilty.
 'Dad's not too fond of the Germans-, vou know that. And since the

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 sudden death of the King of England, the Kaiser is determined to prove
 himself the master of Europe. Dad says he's dangerous, and I agree.'
  'It's just not fair,'said Veronica. 'Everyone blames the Kaiser, but all he
  wants to do is make Germany as strong as the other powers. What's so bad
  about that?'
  'It's the way he goes about it: he struts and rants and always wears that
  damned army outfit with the spiked helmet. That military posturing doesn't
  go down well in Paris and London and New York. They like statesmen to wear
  dark suits and carnations and make speeches about peace and prosperity.'
  'Harry says that European armies are only suited for colonial wars.
  'Suited, maybe. But they are fast becoming equipped for something far more
  destructive. What about these airships that can float right over big towns
  and toss explosives down on the city hall? Look out the window and see the
  guns on that dreadnought: one of those ships could shell a coastal city and
  remain out of sight while doing it. And what about these huge conscript
  armies that Prussia has had for over a hundred years? You don't need
  conscript armies for colonial scraps. Right? Back home I've been down
  through the South ... I walked through the ruined streets of Richmond,
  Virginia, and it's enough to make you weep. The same goes for cities in the
  Carolinas and Georgia. What is it - fifty years back? And they still
  haven't rebuilt everything that the fighting destroyed. And the bitterness
  remains.... It's terrible, and that's the kind of war that these damned
  Europeans are going to have, unless I miss my guess.'
 'Youftighten me with such talk, Glenn.'
  'I promised Dad that I would have a serious word with you. Don't you ever
  miss your friends and your folks and your family? How can you be happy with
  all these foreigners all the time?'
  'I don't want to say any~hing hurtful, Glenn, but these "foreigners" are my
  friends and my family riow.'Glenn would never understand how much Berlin
  meant to her. She loved the city: the opera, the ballet, the orchestras,
  the social life, and the intellectual climate. She loved the crazy,
  uncomplaining, shameless Berliners, with their irrepressible sense of
  humour. She loved the friends she'd made and her husband, and her
  incomparable sons. How could Glenn expect her to abandon everything that
  made life worth living and start all over again in a cultural wasteland
  like New York City?
 'Do you mind if I smoke my pipe? I can't think properly without a

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 taste of Virginia.' From the pocket of his double-breasted flannel jacket
 he took a tobacco pouch, safety matches, and a curly meerschaum pipe.
  'I don't mind, but maybe it's not permitted here. There's a smoking room
  at the back of the restaurant.'
  'Baloney! People smoke everywhere nowadays. People smoke on the street
  in New York, even women.'
 'That sounds horrible,'
  He lit the pipe, which was already charged with tobacco. 'It was the
  flies that got me started,' he said between puffs at the pipe. 'I was
  working o~ a ranch in Texas, and the smoke was the only way you could
  keep them out of your eyes and mouth. I saw guys go crazy.'
  'I'd love to see New York again,' she admitted with what was almost
  reluctance. 'Just for a visit.'
  'You'd never recognize New York City these days, sis. I know your husband
  is reckoned a big shot in that automobile of his. But I stood in Herald
  Square and saw it jammed so tight with automobiles that none of them
  could get going.' He laughed and puffed his pipe. He'd affected a pipe
  when he first came to see her in Germany, the year after Peter was born-,
  Glenn was seventeen then. He'd tried to look grown-up but he'd choked on
  the tobacco smoke, and she'd brought him fruit when he went to bed
  feeling sick. She felt a sudden pang of regret that she'd left her family
  so young. They'd grown up without her, and she'd grown up without them.
 'And Dad and Mama like it in New York?' she asked.
  'They don't spend much time downtown any more. But, sure, Dad likes it.
  While your Harry was betting on airships, Dad was betting on the
  automobile. He invested in steel, oil and rubber and is getting richer
  by the minute.' He puffed on his pipe again. 'You didn't mind my bringing
  Boy with me?'
  'Of course not, but if I'd known earlier, I could have had things better
  prepared. Those little rooms you have . . .'
  'The rooms are fine, sis, and I'm sorry we just descended on you. I
  didn't realize how sick your mother-in-law is. It must make a lot of work
  for you.'
 'It's good to see you, Glenn. Really good.'
  'Boy is stuck on you; you know that, don't you?' he blurted out. She had
  the feeling that he'd been trying to find a way of saying it ever since
  they'd first begun to talk.
 'Yes, I know he is.'
 'You get to know what a man's like when You drink with him. And

                69
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 I've knocked around a bit, sis. I've met a lot of people since I last saw
 you. He's a regular guy.'
  She said nothing for a long time. He was her brother, and she felt she
  should respond. 'He wants me to go away with him.'
  'Boy does?' He was discomposed. He thought she'd just be flattered, and
  laugh. He wished he'd not mentioned it.
  'I don't know what to do, Glenn. The children would never understand. Peter
  would feel I'd betrayed them, and Pauli just dotes on his father.'
 'Buck up, sis. It's nothing to cry about.'
  Glenn could not advise her; she'd known that before confiding in him. Glenn
  was her younger brother: their relationship precluded any chance that he
  could talk to her about such things and keep a sense of proportion. 'Please
  don't say anything to anyone, Glenn. I'm still trying to make up my mind.
  Boy wants me to bring the children, too.'
  Glenn Rensselaer shook his head in amazement. 'You're a dark horse.'
  'I love him, Glenn. I don't know how it happened in such a short time. I
  thought it was something that only happened in books and plays. But I love
  Harry, too.' She turned her head away as the tears welled up in her eyes.
  'Divorced women are not received in our sort of society.'He had to wam her.
  Glenn was a good man. He'd only wanted to make her happy, and now he found
  himself involved in her moral dilemma, the sort of thing he couldn't
  handle.
 'I couldn't go without the children, Glenn.
  'It's a big step.' That bastard Harry, despite his philandering, would
  probably deny her a divorce: he detested the Englishman, Glenn could see
  that. So his sister would be living in sin in a society where such sinners
  were punished here on earth. The idea of that happening to his sister
  pained him. And yet Harry was a swine....
  'I couldn't take Harry's sons from him and give them to another man. That
  would be a sin, wouldn't it?' She wiped her tears away.
 'We only have one life. I'm not a priest.'
  'Hush! They're coming in,' said Veronica, catching sight of Piper and the
  two children coming up the path. As the doorman swung open the doors, the
  sound of a ship's band playing on the sea front came to their ears. They
  were playing Sousa; such bold Yankee music sounded strange in these German
  surroundings.

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 Harald Winter's final meeting with the representatives of the Imperial
 German Navy's purchasing board had not left him in the best of moods. The
 meeting had ended with a gesture that Winter regarded as provocative. One
 of the civilians produced photographs of the army's latest airship, the
 Parseval III, flying over Leipzig. Manufactured by Zeppelin's brilliant
 rival, August von Parseval, it was a most efficient flying machine. It was
 big: its envelope contained five thousand cubic metres of gas. It had two
 hundred-horsepower engines and carried eight passengers. And yet the whole
 contraption could be deflated and taken away by horse-drawn wagon. This
 miracle was achieved by having no rigid metal framework. But the prospect
 ofairships without a rigid metal framework had little or no attraction for
 Harald Winter. He left the meeting in a rage.
  He snapped at the hotel staff and at his personal servants. When he was
  unlocking his decanters for a drink before dressing for dinner, he even
  found fault with the children.
 'They are getting out of control,' he said.
  'How can you say that, Harry? Everyone remarks on how well behaved they
  are.'
  'They're allowed to roam all through the hotel. And Pauli even pesters
  me when I'm working.'
  'And you snap at him. I wish you'd be more patient with little Pauli. He
  adores you so much, and yet you always reject him. Why?'
  'Pauli must grow up. He's like a little puppy that comes licking your
  hand all the time. He wants constant attention.'
  'He wants affection.' Harald Winter had never shown much affection to her
  or to the boys. He'd always said that earning money should be sufficient
  evidence of a man's love for his family.
 'Then let him go to Nanny. What do I pay her for?'
  'Harry, how can you be so blind? Little Pauli loves you more than anyone
  in the whole world. You are his life. You hurt him deeply when you send
  him away with angry words.' She didn't want to pursue the subject. She
  tried to decide whether she could endure her corset as tight as this for
  the entire evening. Some women were abandoning corsets altogether - it
  was the new fashion - but Veronica still kept to the old styles.
  Harald Winter poured brandy for himself and added a generous amount of
  Apollinaris soda water. He drank some and then turned his attention to
  the faults of their guests.
  'They act like a couple of spies,' he complained. 'Do you think no one
  notices them out on the promenade using their field glasses and making
  sketches of the warships?'

                71
           Nineteen hundred and ten

  'Spies?' said Veronica. 'You're speaking of our guests; and one of them
  is my kith and kin.'
  Harald Winter realized that he'd gone too far. He retracted a little. 'I
  didn't mean your brother, I meant the Englinder.'
  'No one was making sketches, Harry, and the field glasses belonged to
  Glenn.'
  'Piper is obviously a spy,' said Winter. He had never really liked the
  English, and this tellow Piper, with his absurdly exaggerated good
  manners and the attention he gave to Veronica, was a prime example of the
  effete English upper class.
  'You sound like a character in those silly books the children read. If
  the ships are secret, why are they anchored here for everyone to see? And
  if you are convinced that Mr Piper is a spy, why bring him here?'
  'It's better that he be someplace where the authorities can keep an eye
  on him,' said Winter.
  'You didn't repeat these suspicions to the people at Fleet Headquarters?'
  'I felt it was my duty.' He put his glass down with more force than was
  necessary.
  'Harry, how could you! Mr Piper is our guest. To report him as a spy is
  . . .,
  'Ungentlemanly?' asked Harry sarcastically. Nervously he smoothed his
  already well-brushed hair. A German wife would know better than to argue
  about such things.
  'No gentleman would do it, Harry,' she told him. 'No English gentleman
  would do it, and neither would a member of the Prussian Officer Corps.
  The officers to whom you reported your suspicions of Mr Piper will not
  see it as something to your credit, Harry.'It was the first time she'd
  confronted him with such direct imputations. Harry's already pale face
  became white with anger.
  'Danmit, Veronica. The fellow is sent to South Africa without any army
  rank. He learns to speak Afrikaans and wanders around anywhere that
  trouble arises. Then the fighting ends and, when you'd think Piper's
  expertise is most needed, the British give him a year's leave and he
  decides to go and look at zeppelins. But before that he turns up in Kiel,
  studying the most modern units of the Kaiser's battle fleet through
  powerful field glasses.'
  'Must you Germans always be so suspicious?' she said bitterly. 'It was
  you who suggested bringing him to Kiel. You knew the Fleet would be here
  for the summer exercises - you told me that yourself.

                72
            The end of Valhalla

 Then you report him for spying. Have you taken leave of your senses,
 Harry? Or are you just trying to find some perverse way to show these
 naval people how patriotic you can be?'
  Her accusation hit him and took effect. His voice was icy cold, Like his
  eyes. 'If that's the way you feel about us Germans, perhaps you'd be
  happier among your own people.'
  'Perhaps I would, Harry. Perhaps I would.' She rang the bell for her bath
  to be run. She would be pleased to get back to her mother-in-law's house.
  She didn't like hotels.

 Those final summer days at Travernfinde marked a change in the children's
 lives. They became both closer together and further apart. They were
 closer because both children knew that Pauli's desperate leap overboard
 had saved his brother's life. Both carried that certain knowledge with
 them always, and although it was seldom, if ever, referred to even
 obliquely, it influenced both of their lives.
  They became further apart, too, for that summer marked the time when
  their carefree childhood really ended and they both, in different ways,
  faced the prospect of becoming men. Pauli, genial and anxious to please,
  did not relish the prospect of going to cadet school and becoming a
  member of the Prussian Officer Corps, and yet he accepted it, as he
  accepted everything his parents proposed, as the best possible course for
  someone of his rather limited abilities.
  Peter's ambition to be an explorer was, like so many of Peter's
  ambitions, a way of describing his desire for freedom and independence.
  Peter was strong and respected strength, and his narrow escape from
  drowning made him see that strength came not only from intellect or
  muscles: strength could come from being in the right place at the right
  time. Sometimes strength could come from loving someone enough to jump
  into the sea. Peter had always considered his little brother weak, but
  now he wasn't so sure.
  The last two days at the house near Travemimde were filled with promises
  and farewells: false promises but sincere farewells. Glenn and his
  English friend were the first to go. When would the boys come and see
  Glenn in New York? Soon, very soon.
  Then Peter and Paul went off to find Fritz Esser. He was in his boat
  shed, chopping wood and bundling it for kindling. He said he was sorry
  that the Valhalla had never been found again. Perhaps it would turn up.
  Wrecks along this coast reappeared as flotsam on the beaches after the
  autumn storms. 'See you next year,' the boys told him.

                73
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  'I won't be here next year. My papers will come for the army, but I won't
  go. I'll be on the run.'
  'Where will you hide?'asked Pauli. They had both come to admire the
  surprising Fritz Esser, but little Pauli hero-worshipped him.
  'People will shelter me,' said Esser confidently. 'Liebknecht says the
  Party will help.'
  In the corner of the old hut Peter spied splinters of beautifully finished
  white hull, just like that of the Valhalla, but he didn't inspect them
  closely. Sometimes it is better not to know.
  Along the beach they saw the pig man. He grinned and waved a knife at them:
  they waved back to him and fled.
  The boys said goodbye to Omi, too. They heard their father whisper to Mama
  that by next year Omi might no longer be here. They kissed Omi goodbye and
  promised to see her next year.
  Veronica went up to the little turret room and spent a few minutes alone
  there. She would never see the Englishman again: she knew that now. She
  could never go away without the children, and yet she could not bring
  herself to take them away from her husband.

 74
       1914
            War unth Russia

 Despite all his previous misgivings, Paul was not unhappy at his military
 school. In fact he rather enjoyed it. He enjoyed the unvarying routine, and
 he appreciated the way everyone accepted his scholastic limitations. It was
 all very strange, of course. Most of the other boys had come from
 Kadettenvoranstalien - the military preparatory schools - and they were used
 to the army routines and the shouting and marching and the uniforms that had
 to be so clean and perfect. Cleanliness had never been one of Paul's
 priori.ties, but luckily a boy named Alex Horner, who'd come from the
 military prep school at Potsdam, helped the fourteen -year-old through those
 difficult early days of April when they first arrived.
  Nothing at Gross-Lichterfelde was quite as he'd imagined it. He'd expected
  to be trained as a soldier, but his daily routine was not so different from
  that of any other German high school except that the teachers wore uniforms
  and he was expected to march and drill each afternoon. He'd hoped to be
  taught to shoot, but so far he'd not even seen a gun.
  His father had told him that the Emperor had to approve each and every
  entrant to this, the Prussian army's only cadet school, and that only the
  sons of aristocrats, army officers and heroic lower ranks could be
  admitted. The truth was somewhat different: most of the cadets were, like
  Paul, the sons of successful businessmen or of doctors, lawyers,
  bureaucrats and even wealthy farmers. Only a few of the boys had
  aristocratic families and most of these were the second or third sons of
  landowners whose estates would go to their elder brothers.
  Alex Horner was typical of these disappointed younger sons. His father
  owned four big farms in East Prussia and had served only a couple of years
  in the army. Alex owed his place at Lichterfelde to the efforts of an uncle
  who was a colonel in the War Office.

                75
          Nineteen hundred andfourteen

  It was Alex who always pulled Paul out of bed when reveille was sounded at
  six o'clock and got him off to the washroom before the cadet NCO came round
  to check the beds. A quick wash and then buttons. It was Alex who showed
  him how to use a button stick so that no metal polish marked his dark-blue
  tunic: a sleepy boy at the other end of the room who once tried polishing
  his buttons last thing at night instead of before breakfast discovered how
  quickly brass dulled, and served a day under arrest. Thanks to Alex, Paul
  was usually one of the first outside ready to be marched off to the
  standard Lichterfelde breakfast of soup and bread and butter. But the most
  important reason that Pauh had for liking Alex Homer was that Alex had seen
  Pauli crying his heart out on the night he first arrived, and Alex had
  never told a living soul.
  Marching back from breakfast along the edge of the parade ground that
  morning in July, Paul remembered April i, the day he'd arrived. That was
  over three months ago; it seemed like years. His father had insisted that
  Mama shouldn't come, and Paul appreciated his father's wisdom. He was quite
  conspicuous enough in the big yellow Italian motorcar with Hauser at the
  wheel. The Winters had lost two chauffeurs, who went to drive Berlin motor
  buses, -so Hauser, the valet, had now learned to drive the car, and he'd
  promised to teach the boys, too, as soon as they were tall enough to reach
  the foot pedals.
  Paul could look back now and smile, but that very first day at the K6nighch
  Preussische Corps des Cadets at Lichterfelde - or what he'd now learned to
  call Zentralanstalt - had come as a shock. Although the band was playing,
  it didn't offset the fuss the parents were making with their tearful
  mothers and odd-looking fathers. The poor boys knew they would be teased
  mercilessly about every aspect of their parents, and everything they did
  and said within the hearing of their fellow recruits.
  Now it was summer, almost eight o'clock, and the sun was very low and blood
  red in an orange sky. Soon it would be hot, but the morning was cool, and
  a march to breakfast and back again was almost a pleasure. Crunch, crunch,
  crunch. Paul had learned to take pride in the precision of their marching.
  For the boys with years of cadet training already behind them it was all
  easy, but Paul had had to learn, and he'd learned well enough to be
  commended and allowed to shout orders to the cadets on one momentous
  occasion. Halt! There was much stamping of boots while the cadet NCO
  saluted the lieutenants, and the lieutenants saluted the Studiendirektor.
  Then,

                76
             War with Russta

 fiLle by file, all two hundred cadets marched into the chapel for morning
 service.
  'Something has happened,' whispered Alex. The chapel was gloomy; the only
  light came through the small stained-glass windows.
  'War?' said Paul. The darkness and the low, vibrant chords of the organ
  provided a chance for furtive conversations. There was a clatter of
  hobnailed boots when one of the seniors stumbled as the back row was
  filled. Then the doors were closed with a resonant thump.
  The boy next to him was a senior - one of the Obertertia, the boys
  permitted to go to rifle shooting in the afternoons. 'The Serbs have
  replied to the Austrian ultimatum.'
  'Everyone knows that,'whispered a boy behind them, 'but will the wretched
  Austrians fight?'
  'Quiefl' called a cadet NCO. 'Horner and Winter, report to me after Latin
  class.'
  Paul stiffened and looked down at his hymnbook. It was always like that:
  the junior year got punished and the senior boys escaped. Was it because
  their sins were overlooked, or had they become more skilled at talking
  without moving their lips? Alex kicked Paul in the ankle; Paul glanced
  at him and grinned. He hoped it would mean nothing worse than being put
  on half lunch ration - the other boys always helped out and the last time
  he'd eaten even better on punishment than he normally did - but if he got
  a three-hour arrest this afternoon he'd be late home, and then he'd have
  Father to answer to. Paul hated to be in disfavour with his father. His
  brother, Peter, had always been able to shrug off those fierce paternal
  admonitions but Paul wanted his father to admire him. He wanted that more
  than anything in the whole world. And it was Friday: this weekend he'd
  arranged for Alex Horner to come home with him, and a detention now would
  mess everything up.
  'Hymn number 103,' said the chaplain mournfully, but no more mournfully
  than usual.

 Paul and Alex escaped with no more than a fierce reprimand. Luckily their
 persecutor wasn't one of their own NCOs but a senior boy who didn't want
 to miss his riding lesson. Normally at 4:30 P.m. - after doing two hours
 of prep - there was drill on the barracks square, but at noon this day the
 boys were told that they were free until dinner and that those with
 weekend passes could go home. It was another sign that something strange
 was in the air.

                77
          Nineteen hundred and fourteen

  And as Alex and Paul went to their train at the Lichterfelde railway
  station they noticed that civilians deferred to them in a way that was
  unusual. 'After you young officers,' said a well-dressed businessmsn at
  the door of the first-class compartment. There was an element of mockery
  in this politeness, and yet it was not entirely mockery. The ticket
  inspector touched his hat in salute to them. He'd never done that before.
  The boys did not read. They sat erect, conscious of their uniforms,
  styled like those of the post-1843 Prussian army, rather than the new
  field-grey ones. Military cap, white gloves, blue tunic, poppy-red cuffs
  and collar with the double gold braid that marked Lichterfelde cadets,
  and on the black leather belt a real bayonet.
  In the other corner of the compartment, the man who'd ushered them inside
  sat reading a copy of the daily paper. The big black headline in Gothic
  type said 'Russia mobilizes.'

 From the Potsdamer railway station they walked through the centre of
 Berlin: past the big expensive shops of Leipziger Strasse, and then along
 Friedrichstrasse. Everywhere they saw groups of people standing around as
 if waiting for something to happen. There were more women on the streets
 nowadays - shopping, strolling, exercising dogs - the shorter skirts
 enabled women to be out and about in a way they never had before. The
 narrow Friedrichstrasse was always busy, of course; here were offices,
 shops, caf6s and clubs, so that it never stopped, night or day. But today
 it seemed different, and even the wide Unter den Linden was filled with
 aindess people. At the intersection of the two streets - one of the most
 popular spots in all Berlin - was the boys' destination: the Victoria C66
 and the best ice cream in town.
  They got a table outside on the pavement and watched the traffic and the
  restless crowds. A No. 4 motor bus went past; on its open top deck were
  half a dozen soldiers. They were flushed of face and singing
  boisterously. The bus was heading towards the Friedrichstrasse railway
  station, where there were always military policemen. Alex predicted that
  they would be in cells within half an hour, and there was little chance
  that he would be wrong.
  Everything was bright green, the lime trees were in full leaf, and the
  birds were not frightened of the noise, not even of the big new motor
  buses. Only when the band marched past did the birds fly away. Alex said
  the band was that of the 3. Garde-Regiment zu Fuss marching back to its
  barracks at Skalitzer Strasse. They wore white

                78
             War tuith Russia

 parade trousers and blue tunics and gleaming helmets, and the music
 sounded fine. Behind them was a company of infantry in field grey. They
 looked tired and dusty, as if they'd been on a long route march, but when
 they got to the corner of Friedrichstrasse there were some cheers from
 civilians standing there, and the soldiers seemed to stiffen up and smile.
  The waiter brought the boys the big platter of ice cream they'd so looked
  forward to on this hot day and they started eating greedily. At the next
  table two men were arguing about whether Russia had really mobilized or
  whether it was just another rumour or another way of selling newspapers.
  New editions of the daily papers were appearing on the streets every
  hour, and the vendors came calling the new headlines with a desperate
  urgency.
  'Will they send us to the front?' Paul asked his friend between mouthfuls
  of ice cream. Alex's time at the military prep school and the skills he'd
  already shown made him an authority on all things military, and Paul
  always deferred to him.
  'Not right away,' said Alex, finishing the last of his chocolate ice
  cream and starting on the raspberry one. 'But they'll need officers once
  the war starts. Perhaps they'll graduate us quickly.'
  'No one could be commissioned before they were seventeen at least, could
  they, Alex?'
  'I'm not sure,' said Alex. 'But if we fight the Russians they'll need
  everyone they can get. The Russians have a very big army. My father will
  have to go: he has a reserve commission in the cavalry. He wants me to
  go into the cavalry, but I'm going to fly in the army airships.'
  'My father has a factory that builds airship parts,' said Paul. He wiped
  a dribble of ice cream from his chin. 'My brother likes airships, but I
  wouldn't much like to fly. I prefer horses.' In fact, Pauli found the
  prospect of flying in an airship quite terrifying, but that wasn't
  something he'd confiee to anyone: not even Alex.
  After finishing their ice cream they walked up Unter den Linden, just to
  see what was happening. From the Victoria Caf6 they went past the
  cathedral, over the museum island', and then returned to the enormous
  block of the Royal Palace. The sentries had been doubled outside the
  palace, and a crowd was staring up at the empty stone balcony, hoping the
  Kaiser would appear, but the Kaiser was at sea with his Fleet. Some of
  the crowd began to sing 'Deutschland i1ber alles', until a dozen
  policemen appeared and after a lot of shouted orders and pushing, moved
  them along.
 When the boys eventually got back to the Winter house it was four

                79
          Nineteen hundred and fourteen

 o'clock. Hauser opened the door. Hauser was growing a beard; progress was
 slow and each weekend Paul noted its development. 'The master is in the
 study with Herr Fischer,' said Hauser, 'and your mama has a headache and is
 sleeping. Your father said you are to see Nanny right away.'
  Paul took his friend up to the top floor. It was a big house, as Alex, on
  his first visit here, noticed. It had the smell of newness. There had been
  many such fine new homes built in Ku-damm over the last twenty years or so.
  There was wood panelling, rich carpets and wonderful furniture. And
  although Alex's own home in far off Kdnigsberg had fine furniture and just
  as many servants, if not more, the Winter house was in such faultless
  condition that he was frightened of leaving a footprint on the perfectly
  brushed carpet or a fingermark on the polished handrails. But Alex was
  enough of a snob to know that these big houses near the Ku-damrn were the
  mansions of the nouveaux riches. The established tycoons had villas in
  Grunewald, and the aristocracy their palaces on the Tiergarten.
  Paul found his nanny in her room, packing her case. 'I'm off, back to
  Scotland, young Paul,' she said. She looked at him as if expecting a
  reaction but, not knowing what he was supposed to say, Pauli stared back at
  her without expression. 'Be good to your mother, Pauh,' she said. Her eyes
  were red. She leaned over and gave him a peck on his forehead. Then she
  reached for the cup of tea she always liked to drink at four o'clock in the
  afternoon. She put condensed milk in it. Afterwards, for all his life, Paul
  never smelled condensed milk without remembering her. 'It will seem strange
  after nearly sixteen years with you all.' She gulped some tea and said,
  'Your father thinks it's best, and he knows.' Her voice was rough. She was
  on the verge of tears, but Paul didn't realize that. He watched her folding
  her aprons and packing them carefully into the big scarred suitcase. He'd
  never seen inside the case before: outside it was stained and scuffed and
  covered with torn hotel labels, but inside its leather was like new.
  Dutifully the boys stayed with her watching her pack, until Paul glanced at
  Alex and made a face. Then, unable to think of anything more appropriate,
  he said, 'Goodbye, Nanny,' and with no more than a perfunctory kiss on her
  cheek he took Alex off to his 'Playroom', which had been called the nursery
  when Nanny first arrived so long ago, before Paul was born.
  While the two boys were setting out the train set, downstairs in his study
  Winter was drinking brandy with his guest, Erwin 'Fuchs' Fischer. The lunch
  had been a protracted one, as lunches tended to

                8o
             War with Russia

 be when Winter wanted to discuss business, for Winter was not a man who
 rushed his hurdles.
  'The loss of both naval airships last year - how did the Count take
  that?' asked Fischer. Asking how von Zeppelin had reacted to the crashes
  was just a roundabout way of asking how Winter had reacted.
  Winter smiled. He was a dapper man and his hair, now parted on the left
  side of his head and allowed to grow longer, had greyed at his temples.
  But he was handsome - undeniably so - even if he was somewhat demonlike
  with his pointed chin and dark, quick eyes. And always he was optimistic.
  It seemed as if nothing could get him down. 'Zeppelins have flown
  thousands and thousands of kilornetres since igoo. Those sailors in L i
  were the very.first deaths in any Zeppelin airship. And that was due to
  a squall; there was no structural failure.'
  'You always were a good salesman, Harry.' Fischer grinned. He had now
  inherited the big complex of metal companies that his father had built
  up in over thirty years of trading. Harry Winter was trying to persuade
  him that a big cash investment in his aluminium business would be to
  their mutual benefit, but Fischer wasn't so sure. He didn't know much
  about the light-alloys business and he was frightened of bringing ruin
  to his father's work. The added responsibilities had aged him suddenly.
  The great helmet of hair had now thinned so that his pink scalp was
  visible, and his eyes were dark and deep-set.
  Winter said, 'A light cruiser - the K61n - radioed a storm warning, but
  ... Well, we don't know what happened after that.'
  'Except that L i crashed into the sea and fourteen sailors died.' Fischer
  scratched his nose. He didn't want to do business with Harald Winter. He
  enjoyed his friendship, but he didn't trust his judgement. Winter was too
  impulsive.
  'Airships are safe, Foxy. But freak weather conditions are something no
  one can provide against.'
  Fischer sipped his brandy. The food and drink were always first class at
  Winter's place, he had to admit that. And he lived in grand style.
  Fischer looked round at the magnificent inlaid desk, the leather-bound
  editions of Goethe, Schiller and Shakespeare that he actually read, and
  the exquisite Oriental carpets that he wasn't afraid to walk upon. Winter
  was not known for giving big parties or having a box at the opera, but
  in his own quiet way he lived very, very well. 'Then, just five weeks
  later, the navy lost the L 2. It burned and fell from the sky. How does
  the Count explain that one, Harry?'

                8 1
          Nineteen hundred and fourteen

  'They took her up to "pressure height" too fast, and hydrogen was valved
  from the gas cells.'
 'I read all that, Harry. But damnit, why did the hydrogen ignite?'
  'The navy fitted big windscreens to the gondolas to provide a bit of
  protection from the air stream. The leaking gas went along the underside of
  the envelope - combining with enough air to make a very explosive mixture.
  From the keel those damned windscreens took it down to the gondola and the
  red-hot parts of the engines.'
  Fischer stroked his lips nervously. 'The navy say that von Zeppelin
  approved their modifications,' persisted Fischer. If Harald Winter wanted
  him to invest in his aluminiurn company, Fischer might let him have some
  small token payment for the sake of their friendship, but it would be no
  more than the company could afford to write off. And even for that Fischer
  was determined to drive a hard bargain.
  'No,' said Winter. 'He simply sent his congratulations on the way the
  finished airship looked.'
  'Having a stand-up row with Grossadmiral von Tirpitz at the funeral didn't
  improve matters for him.'
 'Count Zeppelin's an old man,' said Winter.
  'We're all getting older, Harry, even you. What were you last birthday,
  forty-four?'
 'Yes,' said Harry.
  'And I'm sixty-two. We've known each other a long time, Harry. I should be
  getting ready for retirement, not learning how to run this damned company
  of mine.'
  Pleased with the opening thus provided, Winter said, 'It makes sense: an
  investment with me would make good sense, Foxy.'
 'Aluminium? My instinct is to diversify out of metals.'
  'Exactly what I'm offering. The five million Reichsmarks you invest will be
  for an aero-engine company and an air-frame assembly plant.'
 'You said it was for aluminium.'
  'No, no, no. That's just the collateral I'm offering to you. The extra
  money is for airplane manufacture.'
  'Haven't you got enough troubles in aviation, Harry? Two naval rigids
  crashed. Who's going to buy your aluminium now?'
  'The navy arc committed to the airship programme. They have built airship
  bases along the northern coast and are building more. The money is allotted
  and the personnel are being trained. They can't stop now. They'll buy more
  and more. And so will the army.'

                82
             War with Russia

 'I suppose you are right. And now it's to be airplanes too?'
  'Airplanes will be needed to protect the airships and to attack enemy
  airships too.'
  'So the war is certain, is it Harry? Not just newspaper talk?' To some
  extent this was provocation, but it was also a question. Harry Winter
  mixed with the military people; he'd know what the current thinking was.
  'Is war a part of the company's prospectus?'
  'You sell the navy a battle cruiser and they use it for twenty-five
  years. Sell the army artillery pieces and they last ten or fifteen
  years.' He sipped his drink. 'But aircraft are fragile.'
  'And are expendable in war in a way that battleships are not expendable?'
  'War or no war, airships and airplanes get damaged easily. Men have to
  be trained to fly, so there are many crashes. Everyone knows that,
  including the men who fly them. A constant supply of new machines is
  going to be required by the military.'
 'You're a cold-blooded devil, Harry.'
 'I don't make the decisions, Foxy, I simply react to events.'
  'I can't give you an exact answer, Harry. My son Richard will have to
  agree. But we'll participate.'
  Harald Winter relaxed. He'd got what he wanted. He knew Foxy would try
  to whittle the five million down to one million or less. But what Foxy
  didn't realize was that Harry only wanted his name. He had several
  investors who'd readily put their money in when they heard that Fischer
  was convinced. 'Is Richard a director now?'
  'I'm not going to keep my son out of the business the way my father
  excluded me right tip to the day he died. He's thirty-three years old.
  Richard is a junior partner and gets a chance to decide on everything
  important. What about your two boys?'
  'Little Paul seems happy enough at Lichterfelde. He's a genial chap,
  always laughing. The army will be good for him; he has no head for
  business.'
 'And Peter?'
  'He'll go to university next year ant, then he'll get a position with me.
  I'm arranging for him to be excused his military service and simply be
  replacement reserve. There are plenty of men for the army: the population
  has grown by leaps and bounds. And my factories are now vital to the army
  and navy. If he works hard I'll make Peter a junior partner.'
 'Lucky boy. Is that what he wants to do?'
 'You know what young people are like, Foxy. He has this mad idea

                83
          Nineteen hundred and fourteen

 of becoming a musician. He doesn't understand what a musician's life is
 like.'
 'Is he talented?'
  'They tell me so, but talent is no guarantee that a man will earn a living.
  On the contrary, the more talent a man has the less likely he is to do
  well.'
 'Surely not?'
  'The scientists in my factory, the engineers who design the engines and the
  structures: what talents they have, and yet they will never get more than
  a simple living wage. Most of them could make far more money in the sales
  department, but they are too interested in their work to change. Talent is
  an impediment to them. Look at all the penniless artists desperate to sell
  their work, and the musicians who beg in the street.'
  'And so you've forbidden Peter to study music?' asked Fischer
  provocatively.
  Winter knew that Fischer was baiting him in his usual amiable way but he
  responded vibrantly. 'If he wants to study music, that's entirely up to
  him. But he can't expect to enjoy himself playing music while others work
  to supply him with money.'
  'You'd cut him off without a penny?' said Fischer with a smile. 'That's
  hard on the boy, Harry.'
  'If he wants to inherit the business, he must work. I have no patience with
  people like Frau Wisliceny, who gives the boy these crazy notions.'
  'Frau Wisliceny - Professor Wisliceny's wife? But her "salon" is the most
  famous in Berlin. The world's finest musicians take tea there.'
  'Yes, Frau Professor Doktor Wisliceny, I should have said.... And so do all
  sorts of other riffraff: psychologists, painters, novelists, poets and even
  socialists.'
  Fischer decided not to reveal the fact that he had tea there regularly,
  too, and spent happy hours talking to the 'riffraff. 'But if Frau Wisliceny
  thinks your son Peter has talent ... What does he play?'
  'Piano. I won't have one in the house, so he goes there to practise. My
  wife encourages him, I'm afraid. At first they thought that they'd force me
  to buy one for him but I wouldn't yield. Professor Wisliceny must be a
  strange fellow to put up with it. How did he make his money?'
  Fischer smiled. 'Ah. that rather goes against your theory. The professor is
  a very clever chemist ... synthetic dyestuffs.'

                84
             War with Russia

 'He made money from that?'
  'These aniline dyes save all the time, trouble and expense of getting
  dyes from plants, minerals, or animals. He makes a lot of money selling
  his expertise. You should bear him in mind, Harry, when you are making
  Peter toe the line.'
  Winter was not amused 'I'm not talking about scientists. I don't want a
  musician in the family.'
 'Too bohemian?'
  'I'm not fond of the Wislicenys. People like that should not encourage
  the troublemakers.'
  'They are good people, Harry.'He wanted to calm Winter's anger. 'And the
  three Wisliceny girls are the prettiest in all Berlin. The youngest one,
  Lisl, would be a match for your youngest boy.' Fischer couldn't resist
  teasing Harry Winter. 'She's a gifted little girl: plays the piano at the
  conservatoire.'
 'A little more brandy?' said Harry Winter.
  The question was never answered, for at that moment they heard one of the
  maids screaming. She screamed twice and then came racing - failing almost
  - down the front stairs, the ones the servants were not permitted to use.
  'She's dead. The mistress is dead!'
  Harry Winter rushed to the door and stepped out of his study fast enough
  to catch the hysterical girl in his arms. 'Stop it!'he shouted so
  fiercely that for a moment she was silent. 'Sit down and stop that stupid
  noise.'
  'She's dead,' said the girl, more quietly this time but with great
  insistence. She was shaking uncontrollably.
  Winter ran up the stairs two at a time. He was no longer as fit as he'd
  once been and the exertion left him breathless as he raced into his
  wife's room.
  Veronica, fully dressed in a long green tea gown but with her golden hair
  disarranged, was sprawled across the bed. Winter rolled her over and then
  gently lifted an eyelid to see her eye.
  'My God!' said Fischer, who'd followed him into the room. 'It smells like
  a hospital in here. What's wrong?'
  'She's all right.' Winter looked at his friend and hesitated before
  saying more. 'It's chloroform. My wife takes it in order to sleep.'
 'Shall I send for a doctor?'
  'No, I know what to do.' Winter went to the door and said to the
  chambermaid, 'Send Frau Winter's personal maid to help her to bed. And
  tell Hauser that Frau Winter is unwell. He's to keep the children and the
  servants from disturbing her.'

                85
          Nineteen hundred and fourteen

  Fischer looked round the room. This was Veronica's sanctum: floral
  wallpaper and bows and canopied bed. Harry's bedroom -more severely
  ordered, with mahogany and brass - was next door.
  'It's happened before?' said Fischer as Winter closed the door on the maid
  and turned back to him.
  'Yes,'said Winter. He went to the bed and looked at his wife. Why had she
  done this to him? Winter was too self-centred to see Veronica's actions as
  anything but inconveniences.
  Fischer looked at him with sympathy. So this was why Veronica was not much
  seen lately in Berlin society. Chloroform wasn't taken to combat insomnia;
  it was a drug taken for excitement by foolish young people or by people who
  could no longer face the bleak reality of their world. Veronica was
  American, of course; all this talk of war must have put a strain on her.
  'flow long has this been going on, Harry?'
  There was no point in telling lies. 'We went to Travemijnde in the summer
  of igio. Her brother, Glenn, was with us. It started about &.at time.' He
  picked up the empty bottle and the gauze pad, sniffed at it, and grimaced.
  'I'm damned if I know where she gets the stuff.'
  'It's easy enough to get, if you want it badly enough,' said Fischer who
  knew about such things. 'Any pharmacist stocks it and hospitals use it by
  the bucketful.' He looked at Harry, who was now sitting on the bed
  embracing his unconscious wife. 'Is everything all right between you?'
  Fischer was one of the few men who could be so candid with him.
  'I love her. I love her very much.' Winter fingered the things on his
  wife's bedside table: a Bible, a German-English dictionary and some opened
  letters. Winter put the letters into his pocket. He wanted to see who was
  writing to his wife. Like most womanizers, he was eternally suspicious.
 'With respect, Harry, that's not what I asked.'
 'There are no other men. Of that I'm sure.'
  'So what now?' Fischer was embarrassed to find himself suddenly at the
  centre of this domestic tragedy. But Harald Winter and his wife were old
  friends.
  'I'll have to send for the Wisliceny woman. She's become Veronica's closest
  friend. She looked after her when this happened before.' He looked up at
  Fischer. 'It's not life and death, Foxy. She'll come out of it.'
  'Perhaps she will, but it's damned serious. You must talk to your wife,
  Harry. You must find out what's troubling her. Maybe she should see one of
  these psychologist fellows.'

                86
            Way with Russia

  -Certainly not!' said Winter. 'I won't have some damned witch doctor asking
  her questions that don't concern him. She must pull herself together.'
  Winter hated to think of some such fellow -Austrian Jews, most of them were
  - prising from his wife things that were family matters. Or business
  secrets.
 'It's not so easy, Harry. Veronica is sick.'
  Winter still felt affronted by his wife's behaviour. How could she make
  this scene while Fischer was their guest? 'She has servants, money,
  children, a husband. What more can she want?'
  Love, thought Fischer, but he didn't say it. Was Harry still making those
  frequent trips to Vienna to see his Hungarian mistress? And how much did
  this distress Veronica? From what he knew of American women, they did not
  readily adapt to such situations. But Fischer did not say any of this
  either; he just nodded sympathetically.
  Winter looked at his pocket watch. 'It's so late! What times she chooses
  for these antics. Little Paul has brought a friend home from his military
  school, and my elder son, Peter, will be arriving soon.'
  But, however much Winter tried to put on a bold face, it was obvious to
  Fischer that Veronica's overdosing had shaken him. Winter had even
  forgotten about his investment programme and Fischer's contribution to it.
  You're a damned hard man, thought Fischer, but he didn't say it.

 At that time, Peter was at Frau Wisliceny's house off Kant Strasse. He'd
 spent two happy hours practising the piano under the critical but
 encouraging supervision of Frau Wisliceny. But now he was drinking coffee in
 the drawing room accompanied by the eldest of the three Wisliceny daughters.
 Her name was Inge. She was tall, with a full mouth that smiled easily, and
 dark hair that fell in ringlets around her pale oval face.
  'You will have to tell them, Peter,' she said. 'Your parents will be even
  more angry if you delay telling them.'
 :My father has made up his mind that I go to university this year.'
 To study what?'
 :Law and mathematics.'
 Surely he'll be proud that you've joined the navy?'
  'It will spoil his plans: Lhat's what he will be concerned with. I think
  he's already decided the exact date on which I will become a junior
  partner. He has my life all planned. You don't understand how trapped I
  feel. Your mother is so understanding.'

                87
          Nineteen hundred and fourteen

 'But joining the navy is such a drastic way to escape him.'
 'There will be a war,' said Peter.
  'There may not be a war. My father says the General Staff encourage these
  stories when they want more money.'
  'It's too late now,' said Peter. He grinned. He captivated her with his
  wavy hair and his smiles-, he was so handsome and in a naval officer's
  uniform he would look wonderful. She was very young -only three and a half
  months younger than Peter - but already she had set her heart upon
  capturing him. He didn't know that, of course: she let him think that it
  was no more than a pleasant and casual friendship. And yet, when he was not
  with her, she ached for him, and when he was expected, she spent hours in
  front of the mirror getting ready for him. Her youngest sister, Lisl, was
  the only one who suspected her secret. Sometimes she teased her about this
  serious-minded pianist and made Inge blush.
 'Are you accepted?'
  'Yes. I am accepted for officer training and then for the Imperial Naval
  Airship Division.'
  'That's dangerous,' said Inge, not without a note of pride. She was a
  catlike creature. She shook her head enough to make her lovely hair shine,
  and when she looked at him, those wonderful deep-green eyes were for him
  alone.
  'It's what I want to do. I wouldn't like it on ships. I nearly drowned once
  and I've iever really liked the water since.'
  Inge smiled. She never got used to the way in which he confided such
  secrets to her. What other eighteen-year-old boy would have admitted to
  being frightened of the sea? 'I wouldn't tell the navy that, Peter,' she
  said. 'I don't think they would relish appointing a naval lieutenant who
  didn't like the water.'
 Peter laughed.
  Frau Professor Wisliceny, a large, imposing woman, sailed majestically into
  the room. 'Your mama is not well,' she announced without preamble. She went
  to the mirror and glanced at her reflection before turning back to Peter.
  'You'd better come with me, Peter.'

 88
        1916
  77tat kind of dopes are they to keep COMM' that way?'

 The elderly American and his son were sitting in the library of the
 Travellers Club in London, drinking whiskey. They had the whole room to
 themselves. The club was quiet, as it always was at this time of the
 evening. Those members who had dined in were taking coffee downstairs, and
 the few theatregoers who dropped in for a nightcap had not arrived. Nowadays
 the risk of zeppelin raids persuaded most people to go home early. London -
 despite the presence of hordes of noisy, free-spending young officers - was
 not the town it had been before the war.
  'It sounds damned dangerous,' said Cyrus G. Rensselaer. He was sixty-five
  years old but he looked younger. His hair was a little thinner and grey at
  the side, but the pale-blue eyes were clear and his waistline was trim. He
  felt as fit as ever. It was only looking at his thirty-six-year-old son
  that made him feel his age.
  Glenn Rensselaer looked tired. 'Sometimes it is dangerous,' he agreed.
  'Most of them are only kids straight from school.' For a year he'd been
  working as a civilian flying instructor for the Royal Flying Corps and
  lately he had been training pilots for night flying. It was a new skill and
  the casualty rate was alarming. 'But the zeps come at night, so that's when
  the British have to fly.'
 'Haven't they got anti-aircraft guns?'
  'Not enough of them, and the Huns seem to know where the guns are. But the
  zeps are slow and planes can chase them. They are damned big and sometimes
  you can spot them better from up there.' He looked at his father and saw
  that behind the sprightliness the old man was tired. 'When did you get back
  from Switzerland, Dad?'
  'Yesterday afternoon. The train from Paris was packed with British
  officers, wounded mostly. Poor devils. Not many of them will fight again.
  I went to bed right away and slept the clock around.'
 'You're in a hotel?'

                89
          Nineteen hundred and sixteen

  'The Savoy. It wasn't worth opening the house for just a few nights. To
  tell you the truth, I'm thinking of selling it. If the war hadn't brought
  property prices so low, I would have let it go last year, when you said you
  didn't want to use it.'
  'The war must end soon, Dad. You'll need a place in London.' He wasn't sure
  whether his father would still be young enough for the rigours of
  transatlantic crossing by the time these remorseless Europeans had fought
  themselves to a standstill, but he felt it was his duty always to encourage
  his hopes and plans. Cy Rensselaer's wife, Mary, had died unexpectedly the
  previous year, and he didn't want his father to go into what people called
  a decline.
  But Glenn needn't have worried about that. 'Well, as a matter of fact I was
  going to have a word with you about family matters, son.'
 'Sure, Dad. What is it?'
  'Would you think I'm crazy if I told you I'm going to get hitched again?"
  'Hitched?'For a moment he didn't understand. 'Hitched'was not the sort of
  word that his father used. That he used it now was a measure of Cy
  Rensselaer's embarrassment. 'Married, you mean?'
 'Yes. Remarried. Is it too soon? I know you loved Mom.'
 'Whatever is best for you, Dad. You know that.'
 'Do you remember Dot Turner? Bob Turner's widow.'
 'Turner Loans, Savings and Realty?'
  'She's got three boys. A nice woman. I met her at a dinner party last
  Christmas and we get along just fine. Do I sound like an old fool, Glenn?'
 'No, Dad, of course not.'
  'I get lonely sometimes. I miss your mother. She did everything for me. .
  . . It's just the companionship.'
 'I know, Dad. I know.'
  'She wouldn't take the place of your mother. No one could do that . . .'
  'It's a great idea, Dad,' said Glenn, still trying to get used to the
  prospect of having a new mother.
  , She's too old to have a family or anything. It's just companionship.
  She's got all the money she needs, and her boys wouldn't take the
  Rensselaer name. It wouldn't make a jot of difference to you or Veronica.'
  'Sure-, Dad, sure.'He looked at his father and smiled. The old man leaned
  out and touched his son's arm. He was happier now he'd got it off his
  chest.

                90
    'What kind of dopes are they to keep coming that way?'

 'And if you want the house here in London, I'll turn it over to you.' 'I
 live on the airfield. It's comfortable enough out there. The Royal Flying
 Corps have even given me a servant - "batmen", they call them. And I enjoy
 being with the youngsters. They are full of life and they talk nothing but
 flying. But tell me about Switzerland.'
  'I wanted to take the train and go right through to Berlin, and see dear
  Veronica,' said the old man, 'but the ambassador was so strongly against
  it.'
  'You must be careful, Dad. A lot of people would misunderstand a trip to
  meet a German partner.'
 'What do you mean, Glenn?'
  'Harald Winter is your partner, and he's making aeroplanes and airships
  for the Germans. The British are in the middle of a desperate war. Your
  trip to meet Winter could be construed as a betrayal by your British
  friends.'
 'I wish to God I'd never loaned the money to him.'
 'But it's been a good investment for you?'
  His father's voice was hoarse and hesitant. 'He's doing okay. He got into
  aviation at the very beginning, and he's been very shrewd. He builds only
  under licence from other manufacturers 6o he doesn't have all the worries
  about designing new ships and selling new ideas to the military.'
  'And Winter had no difficulties about meeting you in Switzerland? The
  British say that Germany is virtually under martial law.'
  'The Zeppelin company is in Friedrichshafen on the Bodensee. From there
  he had only a short trip on the ferryboat to Romanshorn. And Winter has
  become an important factor to the wartime economy; he's a big shot now.'
 'I can imagine how he struts around.'
  'You never liked him, did you?' said the old man. 'I was always against
  him, too, but this time . . .' He shrugged. 'He looks really worn out.
  I might have passed him on the street without recognizing him. And he's
  really concerned about Veronica. I never realized how much she meant to
  him.'
 'Is he still running around with other women?'
 'How can I know that?' said his father.
 'I wish she'd come home.'
  'We all wish she'd come home, Glenn. But it's her life. We can't live her
  life for her. And now that she's ill, I have to say that Harald has done
  everything for her. She's seen specialists in Berlin and Vienna, and she
  has a nurse night and day.'

                91
          Nineteen hundred and sixteen

 'I've never understood exactly what's wrong with her.'
  'No one seems to know. The war came as a shock to her and now that Peter is
  serving with the Airship Division, she's obviously worried about him. But
  it's more complicated than that. Harald says she seems to have lost the
  will to live. It happens to some women, of course. Their children grow up
  and they find themselves beyond the age of childbearing. Somehow they feel
  useless.'
  'Especially if their husband spends all his spare time with his
  mistresses.'
 'We can't be sure about that, Glenn.'
 'Men like him don't change.'
  'We all change, Glenn. Some more than others, but we all change. Women have
  to feel needed, but maybe men have to feel needed, too. Maybe that's why we
  all have this compulsion to go on working even when we have enough money to
  live in style.'
 'Poor Veronica.'
  'It's pointless for her to worry about Peter. But that boy has a mind of
  his own. I remember how he went for me because I let slip a few home truths
  about Kaiser Bill. Even though he was just a child, he let fly at me. I was
  mad at him at the time, but when I thought about it I had to admire the
  little demon. It takes guts to challenge your grandfather in such
  circumstances. He's a plucky kid. No surprise to me that he upped and
  joined the navy airships.'
  'The boy has a better chance than he'd have with an infantry regiment on
  the Western Front. Did you see the casualties the British have suffered on
  the Somme in July? Column after column after column of names in the
  newspapers. Neither side can keep on like this. Two years ago, right here
  on the streets of London, I saw crowds cheering the prospect of fighting
  the Germans, but there are not many cheers left anywhere now. Even the
  fliers I teach make grim jokes about how long they expect to last.'
  'Winter gave me photos of his two boys. I should have brought them. Peter
  is big. In his naval officer's uniform he is a handsome young man. He's
  tall and dark, with eyes just like Veronica. Peter is the solemn one -
  dedicated and scholarly. He's a German through and through, but he's like
  the best sort of Germans I knew before the war: solid, honest and reliable.
  Harry is so proud of them.'
  'I saw Peter in Berlin the summer the war started. Veronica took me to see
  a friend of hers, Frau Wisliceny. Did you ever meet the Wislicenys?'
 'I met the professor here in London one time.'

                92
   'What kind of dopes are they to keep coming that way?'

  'Frau Wisliceny got Peter to study music. He played the piano for us. It
  sounded kind of good to me, but I don't understand any of that classical
  music. It seemed to me that Peter was more interested in the three
  daughters. The youngest one - Lisl, I think her name was - was obviously
  crazy about him Yeah, he's a nice kid.'
  'Mathematics and music. Harry said that Peter was interested in nothing
  else.'
  'Fathers don't always know what sons are interested in,' said Glenn.
  'I wish like hell you'd get interested in some lovely daughters,' said his
  father.
  'I'm interested in all kinds of daughters, Dad. But I don't want to marry
  any of them right now.'
  'Those two boys of Harry Winter's are the only grandchildren I've got,
  Glenn. You tell me &t maybe I shouldn't cosy up to him on account ofthe
  war, and maybe you're right. But I'm getting old, Glenn, and there's no
  sign of you providing me with heirs. Those two boys are all I've got.'
 'I didn't realize how much that kind of thing meant to you, Dad.'
  'At one time it didn't mean a thing. But you get to being sixty-five and
  you look at the work you've done and you look at the money you've stacked
  away and you start wondering what it's all for.'
 'I just don't know enough about business. . . .'
  'It wasn't intended as any kind of reproach, my boy. You've lived your own
  kind of life and I respect it. You seldom ask me for anything.... To tell
  you the truth, I wish you asked for more, and asked more often. A man wants
  to feel his son needs him now and again. . . .'
 'I always .
  'Let me finish. I'm just trying to explain to you why I didn't go over
  there and sell out my holding in Winter's factories and tell him to go to
  hell.'
 'I didn't criticize you.'
  'I know you didn't, but over the recent months you've made it clear that
  you would have handled Harry differently. I wanted you to understand why I
  go along with the bastard.'
  'I understand, Dad.' Glenn wondered whether marrying Dot Turner was his
  father's excuse for taking over the Turner kids. This sudden interest in
  young people was something to do with growing old.
 For a few moments Cyrus was silent. When he spoke again it was

                93
          Nineteen hundred and sixteen

 in a quieter voice. 'Tile younger boy, Pauli, is an unmistakable Rensselaer
 with that big Rensselaer jawline and wide flat head. He's never (lone well
 at school - he just scrapes by each term, Harald tells me - but he's such a
 character. A regular Yankee Doodle; I've always said he was a real little
 Yankee. And, what a charmer. Always laughing, takes nothing seriously, not
 the Kaiser, not military school, not the war, not IT arry. He adores
 Veronica, of course, and she dotes on little Pauli. He's coming up to his
 final year at military school. Soon he'll be at the front. Harry worries
 about both boys. He hated it when Peter went into the Airship Division, but
 Pauli has always been the baby ofthe family. You should hear Harry's stories
 about little Pauli. He adores him. The thought of him leading a platoon of
 infantry in a bayonet charge is not easy to face. And, like you sa, ,
 everyone knows what kind of casualties there are among y
 young infantry lieutenants. The thought of it - plus his worries about
 Veronica - is wearing Harry down.'
  At that moment a servant entered the library. After unhurriedly adjusting
  the edges of the curtains, he said to the older man, 'The secretary's
  compliments, Mr Rensselaer, and I am to inform you that there is an
  air-raid warning.'
  'Thank you,' said Rensselaer calmly. He drank a little whiskey before
  asking his son, 'What exactly does that mean, Glenn? Aren't you supposed to
  be the expert on zeppelin raids?'
  'The German zeppelins take off from their bases after lunch. One, two,
  anything up to a dozen airships fly out over the North Sea and then they
  hover there, just over the horizon, where the British can't see them, and
  well out of range of any acroplane. They sit out there for hour after hour
  waiting for the light to fade. When it gets dark, they sail in and bomb
  their chosen targets.'
 'Sounds kind of spooky.'
  'Maybe. Hurry and wait: that's the way the military always do things. But
  the Royal Navy has learned to take advantage of that ritual. 'They have
  listening posts along the eastern coast, and they pick up the radio
  messages that the zeppelins send to each other while they are waiting out
  there. Sometimes they are even able to discover what the targei is going to
  be.'
 'And tonight London is the target.'
 'Nowadays London is always a target, and usually the main one.'
 'And what are we supposed to do now?'
  'There are probably shelters down in the cellar. Some clubs even have
  sleeping arrangements. But I usually go up to the roof and watch the
  fireworks.'

                94
    'What kind of dopes are they to keep coming that way?'

 'Then what are we waiting for?'
  'The nights are beginning to get chilly now, Dad. I think we'll need our
  overcoats, and maybe a bottle of Scotch.'

 Sitting on the chimney parapet that night in 1916, with his son beside him
 and a bottle of whiskey to hand, was something Cyrus Rensselaer remembered
 vividly for the rest of his days. The strange life the old man had led, the
 travelling and the hard work, had prevented him from seeing his son grow up
 in the way that other, luckier men did, watching their sons and helping them
 as they faltered into adulthood. But to some extent this night compensated
 for that lost relationship. Tonight the two men drew together, not as proud
 father and dutiful son, but as two friends with common interests and values
 who enjoyed each other's company.
  Glenn, too, remembered this night for as long as he lived not just for the
  events they witnessed but because it was the high point of his relationship
  with his father.
 'My boys will be excited,' said Glenn.
 'Will they be in the air?'
  'Not yet. They'll probably be sitting on their butts waiting for a
  sighting.'
 'Then?'
  'Then they have to take off in the dark and climb like hell. The zeps can
  get danmed high nowadays. An aeroplane pilot has to be darned nifty to get
  in among them before they bomb and climb away. But they'll try. They'll
  chase after those zeps until their gas tanks run dry. Then comes the bit
  they all dread, landing in the dark - it's a bitch. We've lost too many
  good boys in accidents; sometimes I wonder if it's worth it.'
  'What do you mean by thatFsaid the elder man, although he could not repress
  a shudder. If landing in the dark was the most dangerous part of the
  mission, what were the chances that Glenn would survive the job of teaching
  these boys how to do it?
  'Maybe we should let them come in and bomb. Now that Londoners have learned
  how to darken the town, central London has become more difficult to find on
  a dark night, and that's the only kind of night the zeps come. And even
  when they bomb, they seldom hit anything of military value or kill more
  than half a dozen people.'
 'Sounds mighty callous, Glenn.'
  'The British lost fifty thousand infantry before lunch on the Somme afew
  weeks back.'

                95
          Nineteen hundred and sixteen

  The old man sighed. 'WeU, maybe you are right. But it would rile me to
  think of those Germans cruising overhead unchallenged.'
  'It's Polincs, Dad. The politicians wouldn't dare leave London undefended,
  even if it was the right thing to do. The voters would never stand for it.
  My boys wouldn't stand for it, either. . . .' He drank. 'Especially now
  that we have rich civilians offering rewards for anyone who downs it zep.'
 'I was reading about ihat.'
  'Three thousand five hundred pounds sterling for any pilot who gets himself
  an airship, and any time at all someone is likely to chip in another bagful
  of gold. That's enough to set one of my boys up for life.'
  'Are you still flying with your buddy Piper, the Englishman you met on the
  boat?'
 'The one that went for Veronica.'
 'Veronica?'
  It was the whiskey of course. Glenn could have bitten his tongue off. 'It's
  a long time ago.'
 'Veronica. My Veronica?'
  'You remember how I went to stay at old Frau Winter's house that summer
  when they were all on vacation there. It was long before the war . . .
  igio, I think. I was starting that tour around Germany that I did with
  "Boy" Piper. I'd just met him, and we spent a week with the Winters.'
  'Never mind the goddamned filibuster,' said his father. 'What happened?'
  'Hell, nothing happened, Dad. But Boy wanted Veronica to marry him. He was
  crazy about her. He still is. He never got married, and once, when he left
  his wallet and stuff in my locker - Royal Flying Corps pilots are not
  allowed to carry personal effects when they're in the air - a photo of
  Veronica fell out. He made some silly joke about it being a photo of his
  sister, but I recognized Veronica all right. Then, after that, he always
  carried it with him, like a lucky piece.'
 'Jesus! How did Harry react to all this?'
  'I told you, Dad, there was nothing to react to. Boy just fell head over
  heels in love with Veronica. I think she went for him too, but she figured
  she had to stay with Harald because of the boys.'
  'You mean you even discussed this with Veronica?' His father was
  incredulous. 'She knew Piper was in love with her? It sounds like a damned
  funny business.'
 'We were in a hotel in Kiel. Veronica told me that Boy had asked

                96
    'What kind of dopes are they to keep coming that way?'

 her to go away with him. She had to tell someone, and she couldn't tell
 Harald. She was in love with Boy, there was no doubt about that. I could see
 it in her face.'
 'And what did you say?'
  'I wish I'd told her to go with Boy. He's a great guy-, she would have been
  happy with him. And Harald is a louse.'
  'Well, I'm glad you told me about this,' said Cyrus bitterly. 'I'm relieved
  that your mother never found out.'
 'No one will find out. I never even discussed it with Boy.'
 'And is your friend Piper still working with you?'
  'The lucky dog got command of a squadron on the Western Front. Can you
  imagine that? He's over forty years old. And he didn't even learn to fly
  until the war began. How the devil he fixed it I'll never know. Not
  fighters of course, but even so .
 'What's that across there?'
  'Searchlights. That will be a zeppelin; they always come in that way from
  the northeast. Some of them mistake the river Lea for the Thames and drop
  their bombs there, which can be bad luck if you live out that way.'
 'More searchlights.'
  'I think they've got him. See the little sparks - bluish-white flickers.
  That's the anti-aircraft shells exploding. Maybe you can hear them.'
 'Well below him.'
 'We haven't got enough long-range high-velocity guns.'
  Glenn's father noticed that 'we' hadn't got the guns. Although Rensselaer
  senior was an unreserved Anglophile, he was, above all, an American, and
  determined to stay out of this European quarrel. He was tempted to lecture
  his son on the subject, but he wisely decided that this was not the time or
  place. 'There must be a dozen searchlights there.'
  'The defences concentrate there because that's the way the Germans come.'
 'What kind of dopes are they to keep coming that way?'
  'No, they are smart to come that way. The Thames estuary is wide. The zeps
  come over the water and they can get very close to London before making a
  landfall.'
  'More searchlights.' There were much louder explosions from the other
  direction, somewhere south of the river - Southwark, probably - but the
  bombs were small ones and the sound was muffled. In the street below a
  policeman cycled past, blowing blasts on a whistle.

                97
          Nineteen hundred and sixteen

  'There's another zep there ... maybe three or four. The searchlights are
  trying to find them all. They come in like that sometimes - three or four
  together - one zep is detected but the others slip past.'
 'They're coming this way.'
  'It's central London they are looking for. Look at the gunfire now.'
  'The searchlights have got him!' Despite the elder man's determination to
  stay neutral, the atavistic excitement of the hunt now brought him to his
  feet. Glenn steadied his father on the slippery moss that grew in the
  guttering. Now the silver fabric of the airship was gleaming as the
  stiletto-thin beams stabbed into it. There were half a dozen lights and, at
  the point of the pyramid, the fishlike airship. 'He's hit!' For a moment
  the airship disappeared behind a cloud of white smoke. As it cleared, the
  fish was tilted at a crazy upward angle. 'He's hit!'
 'No. That's not smoke. He's dropping water ballast
  Boom, boom, boom. Like distant thunder came the sound of high explosive,
  much lower and more vibratory than the crack of the guns. The building
  shook.
  '. . . and his bomb load, too. Now he's lightened, he'll climb for dear
  life.'
 'What's that?' Coloured flares lit the sky bright red.
  'They're Very pistol lights. One of my boys telling the guns to stop firing
  while the airplanes try. Look at that zep go!' Without bombs and water
  ballast, the zeppelin rose at an astonishing speed, so that the
  searchlights slid away and the airship disappeared into the dark night.
 'Has he escaped?'
  'Maybe. Somewhere up there two of them are playing a game of hide and seek.
  There's a little scattered cloud to the north. If I was the zep captain I'd
  be making for it.'
 'And if you were the airplane pilot you'd be heading that way, too.'
  The), continued to stare towards the northeast. 'It's damned cold tonight,'
  said Rensselaer senior. He shuddered.
  Suddenly there was a red glow in the sky. Small at first; then, like a
  Chinese paper lantern, the great airship became a short red tube that
  lengthened as the flaming hydrogen burst from one gas cell to the next
  until the whole shape of the airship was depicted in dull red. Then at one
  place the flames ate through the fabric and were revealed as bright orange.
  Only then, as the aluminium melted, did the

                98
   'What kind of dopes are they to keep coming that way?'

 zeppelin cease its graceful forward motion. Halted, it became a cloud of
 burning gas around a tangle of almost white-hot metal, and then, slowly
 but with gathering speed, the great airship fell from the sky.
  'Oh my God!'cried Rensselaer senior. No hatred now for friend or foe. He
  turned away and covered his face with his hands. 'It's horrible,
  horrible!' Glen Rensselaer put his arms round his father's shoulders and
  embraced him in the way that his father had so often comfortedhim as a
  child.

        'You're a good, reliable officer'

 On the wall of' the office there was a calendar advertising 'the margarine
 Germans enjoy'. It was there because some thoughtful printer had provided
 for each day a small diagram of the phases of the moon. The week before
 and the week after the new moon were marked in red ink. For the zeppelin
 service, knowing which nights were to be dark and moonless was a matter
 of life and death.
  Lieutenant Peter Winter sat at the desk under the calendar. He wore the
  dark-blue uniform of the Imperial Navy complete with stiff wing collar
  that dug into his neck as he bent over his work. From this window, on
  those very rare moments when he looked up from his task, he could see the
  hard morning sunlight shining on the zeppelin sheds, the hydrogen plant
  and the flat landscape of the sort that he'd known as a child at
  Travenifinde, not so far away.
  'Can I get the twelve-noon train, Peter?' Hans-jiirgen, a fellow Berliner
  was today taking the despatch case to the ministry. If he caught the
  early train, he'd have a chance to see his girl.
  'Fifteen minutes, no more,' promised Peter without looking up from his
  labour. When he'd volunteered for the Navy Airship Division, he'd never
  guessed how much of his time he'd spend at a desk, filling out forms and
  signing long reports about things he only half understood. Compared with
  this drudgery, working for his father would have been stimulating. On the
  other hand, working for his father would not have provided him with the
  naval officer's uniform, of which he was secretly so proud, or the
  bombing trips over England, which he found both daunting and stimulating.
  Stimulating because he was at the period of physical and mental
  development when humans suddenly discover who and what they are. And
  Peter had discovered that he was courageous. The flights did not frighten
  him in the way that some of his comrades were frightened.

                99
          Nineteen hundred and sixteen

  He signed the form and slapped it into the box while grabbing the next pile
  of paperwork. It seemed absurd that each zeppelin commander had to file
  seven copies of each flight log. Then came the route charts and endless
  lists showing the precise time that ballast was jettisoned and the exact
  amount of it. The weather forecast was compared with the actual weather
  conditions; the name, rank, number and age of each crew member had to be
  entered each time, and their behaviour throughout the mission noted. The
  times of take off, changes of course, bombing and landing were all here.
  Attached, on separate sheets submitted by the navigating officers, there
  were observations of enemy targets, and descriptions of any shipping seen
  en route. These had all been signed and then verified and countersigned by
  the commanders. All of it would soon be filed away and forgotten in some
  dusty Berlin office. Sometimes he felt like screaming and shovelling the
  whole pile of it into the wastepaper basket. But he plodded steadily on -
  with glances at the clock so as to have it all ready in time for his friend
  to catch the Berlin train.
  There was no opportunity for Peter Winter to get to Berlin and see his
  girl, Lisl, the youngest of the Wisliceny girls - for tonight, according to
  the margarine calendar, was to be dark. And Peter was due to take off at
  1:30 p.m. There would be no time for lunch.
  And yet he must get to Berlin soon. Inge Wisliceny seemed to have some idea
  that she was his girl. He liked Inge, but only as a friend. It was her
  sister Lisl that he was seriously attracted to and this would have to be
  explained to Inge. Inge would be hurt; he knew that. Losing Peter to her
  young sister would be especially wounding, for Inge was rather haughty
  about her sisters. He didn't look forward to it, but it would have to be
  done.
  Inge was too serious, too conventional, and too intense. In some ways she
  was too much like Peter, though he'd never admit that. Lisl was young --
  childlike sometimes - irreverent, impudent and quite outrageous. But Lisl
  made him laugh. Lisl was someone he wanted to be with on his precious brief
  trips to Berlin.
  The paperwork was only just completed in time for Peter to change into his
  heavy leather flying clothes, which came complete with long underwear. When
  he arrived at the airship, hot and sweaty, the engines were already being
  run up. Within the confines ot the iron shed the noise was deafening. Their
  shed companion, an old zeppelin that dated from the first weeks of the war
  - her crew called her 'the Dragon' - was already out on the field.
'Achiung! Stand clear of propellers!' the duty officer in charge of too
          'You're a good, reliable offwer'

 the ground crew shouted. The engineers let in the clutches and engaged the
 gears. One by one the big Maybach engines took the weight of the four-bladed
 wooden props and the engines modulated to a lower note. A cloud of dust was
 kicked up from the floor of the shed.
  Peter swung aboard and almost collided with men loading the bombs: four
  thousand pounds of high explosive and incendiaries. As he stepped aboard,
  the airship swayed and one of the handling party unhooked a sack of ballast
  from the side of the airship. Its weight approximated that of Peter so that
  the airship continued in its state of equilibrium within the shed.
  He climbed into the control gondola, a tiny glass-sided room two yards wide
  and three yards long. The others were already in position, and there was
  little space to spare. Above the roar of the engines came the constant
  jingle of the engine room telegraph and the buzz of the telephones. The
  noise lessened as the engineers throttled back until the engines were just
  ticking over. Then they were switched off and it became unnaturally quiet.
  The captain - a thirty-three-year-old Kapit5nleutnant - nodded in response
  to Peter's salute, but the rudder man and the man at the elevator did not
  look up Hildmann, the observation officer - a veteran with goatee beard -
  immediately said, 'Winter, go and take another look at the windsock. This
  damned wind is changing all the time.... No, it's all right. Carl is doing
  it.' And then, to the captain, he said, 'All clear for leaving the shed.'
  The observation officer then climbed down from the gondola in order to
  supervise the tricky task of walking the airship out of the shed.
  There was the sound of whistles, and the command 'Airship march!' as the
  ground handling party tugged at the ropes and heaved at the handles on the
  fore and aft gondolas to run the airship out through the narrow shed door.
  Peter leaned out of the gondola and watched anxiously. The previous month,
  in just such a situation, the airship had brushed the doorway and suffered
  enough damage to be kept grounded. For that mistake their leave had been
  cancelled, and leave these days was precious to everyone. When the stern
  came out of the shed there was a murmur of relief.
  'Slip astern!' The rearmost ropes were cast off, and she began to swing
  round so rapidly that the men of the handling party had to run to keep up
  with her. Then, with all the ground crew tugging at her, the airship
  stopped. Hildmann climbed back aboard and, with a quick look round, the
  captain gave the order to restart engines. In lot
          Nineteen hundred and sixteen

 response to the ringing of the telegraphs, one after another the warmed
 engines roared into life. 'Up!' The handling party let go of the leading
 gondola and she reared up at an angle.
 'Stern engines full speed ahead!'
  Now the handling party holding the handles along the rear gondola could not
  have held on to it without being pulled aloft. Suddenly the ship was
  airborne and every man aboard felt the deck swing free underfoot, and the
  airship wallowed in the warm afternoon air. It would be many hours before
  they'd feel solid ground underfoot.
  The engineer officer saluted the captain before climbing the ladder from
  the control room up to the keel. His fur-lined boots disappeared through
  the dark rectangle in the ceiling. He was off to his position at the
  rear-engine gondola. He would spend the rest of the flight with his
  engines. The other men moved to take advantage of the extra space.
  Now that the airship was well clear of the roofs of the sheds, the motors
  were revved up to full speed. There was no real hurry to reach the
  rendezvous spot in the cold air of the North Sea, but when so many
  zeppelins were flying together, it always became something of a race.
  There were twenty-three in the crew. They knew one another very well by
  now. Apart from two of the engine mechanics and the sailmaker - whose job
  it was to repair leaks in the gas bags or outer envelope - they'd all
  trained and served together for some ten months. They'd flown out of
  Leipzig learning their airmanship on the old passenger zeppelins, including
  the famous Viktoria-Luise. They were happy days. But that was a long time
  ago. Now the war seemed to be a grim contest of endurance.
  Oberleutnant Hildmann, the observation officer - who was also second in
  command - was a martinet who'd served many years with the Baltic Fleet. It
  was he who had assigned Peter to navigation. Actually this was the
  steersman's job, but Peter's effortless mental arithmetic gave him a great
  advantage when it came to working out endless triangles of velocity. It was
  a skill worth having when Headquarters radioed so many different wind
  speeds, and in the black night they tried to estimate their position over
  the darkened enemy landscape.
  Peter had been given a sheltered corner of the chilly, windswept control
  gondola in which to spread his navigation charts. Now he scribbled the
  airship's course and her estimated speed on a piece of

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 paper, and tried to catch glimpses of the North German coast. Upon the map
 he would then draw a triangle, and from this get an idea of what winds the
 night would bring.
  There was cumulus cloud to the north and a scattering of cirrus. The
  forecast said that there would be scattered clouds over eastern England by
  evening. That was good news: cloud provided a place to hide.
  When they reached Norderney - a small island in the North Sea used as a
  navigation pinpoint - Peter spotted several other zeppelins. The sun shone
  brightly on their silver fabric. One of them, well to the rear, was easily
  recognized as the Dragon: her engines were worn out with so many war
  flights over these waters, so that her mechanics had to nurse the noisy
  machinery all the way. Nearer was the L 23, with another naval airship
  moving through the mist beyond. It was a big raid today. Rumours said that
  there were a dozen naval airships engaged, and three or four army airships,
  too. Perhaps this would be the raid that would convince the British to seek
  peace terms. The newspapers all said that the British were reeling under
  the air raids on London, and the foolhardy British offensive along the
  river Somme in July had been a bloodletting for them.
  For Peter, London was just a dim memory. It seemed a long time ago since he
  had last visited his grandparents in the big house there. He remembered his
  grandfather and the big English fruitcakes that were served at four o'clock
  each day. He remembered the busy streets in the City, where Grandfather had
  an office, and the quiet gardens and the street musicians to whom
  Grandfather always gave money. Especially vividly he recalled the piper, a
  Highlander in kilt and full Scots costume. He seemed too haughty to ask for
  money, but he stooped to pick up the coins thrown from the nursery window.
  The piper always came by about teatime, and the little German band came
  soon after. The bandleader was a big fellow with a red face and furious arm
  movements. He was astonished when Pauli responded to their music with rough
  and rude Berlin slang.
  Peter's memories of London had no meaning for him now. His boyhood desire
  to become an explorer was almost forgotten. The war had changed him. He'd
  lost too many comrades to relish these bombing missions. He was proud of
  his active, dangerous role, but when victory came he'd be content to spend
  the rest of his life in Berlin.
  The whistle on the speaking tube sounded. Peter took the whistle from the
  tube, which he then put to his ear: 'Hello?' It was the

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 lookout reporting the sighting of a ship: a German destroyer heading for
 Bremen. Peter noted it in the log and went back to his charts. They were at
 the rendezvous. Now commenced the worst part of the mission. Here at the
 rendezvous there would be hours of waiting, the engines ticking over just
 enough to hold position in the air. A skeleton crew on duty and anything up
 to a dozen men in hammocks slung along the gangways. No one would sleep; no
 one ever slept. You just stretched out and wondered what the night would
 bring. You remembered the stories about the airships that had broken up in
 mid-air or burst into flames. You wondered if the British had improved upon
 their anti-aircraft gunfire or perfected the incendiary bullets that the
 fighter planes fired.
  The whitecapped sea would soon darken. But the days were long up here in
  the sky. Although the sun sank lower and lower, the waiting airships
  remained bathed in its light, glowing with that golden luminosity that is
  so like flame.
  'Winter. Leave whatever you're doing and go to the number-two gun position:
  the telephone is not working.'
  The observation officer was not a bad fellow, but he, too, succumbed to the
  nervousness of these waiting periods. Peter knew that there was nothing
  wrong with the telephone. The gunners were down inside the hull, out of the
  cold airstream, trying to keep warm. Once you got cold there was no way to
  get warm again: there was no such thing as a warm place on a naval airship.
  And who could blame the gun crew? There was no chance of enemy aircraft out
  here, so far from the English coast.
  '_7a, Herr Oberleutnant. Right away,' Peter saluted him. Saluting was not
  insisted on in such circumstances, but Hildmann, like most regular officers
  of the old navy, didn't like the 'sloppy informality' of the Airship
  Division.
  Peter climbed the short ladder that connected the control gondola to the
  keel. To get to the upper gun position took Peter right through the
  airship's hull. As he walked along the narrow gangway, he looked down
  through the gaps in the flapping outer cover and could see the ocean,
  almost three thousand feet below. The water was grey and spurny, speckled
  with the last low rays of sunlight coming through the broken cloud. Peter
  didn't look down except when he had to. The ocean was a threatening sight.
  He had never enjoyed sailing since Chat day when he'd nearly drowned, and
  the prospect of serving on a surface vessel filled him with horror.
 Some light was reflected from below, but the inside of the airship

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 was dark. Above him the huge gas cells moved constantly. All around him
 there were noises: it was like being in the bowels of some huge monster.
 Besides the rustling of the gas cells there was the creaking of the
 aluminium framework along which he walked and the musical cries of thousands
 of steel bracing wires.
  It was a fearsomely long vertical ladder that took him up between the gas
  cells to the very top of the envelope. Finally he emerged into the daylight
  on the top of the zeppelin. Suddenly it was very sunny, but the air was
  bitterly cold and he had to hold tight to the safety rail. What a curious
  place it was up here on the upper side of the hull. The silver fabric
  sloped away to each side, and the great length of the airship was
  emphasized. What an amazing achievement it was for man to build a flying
  machine as big as a cathedral.
  Peter stood there staring for a moment or two. To the portside he could see
  two other zeppelins. They were higher, by several hundred feet. Ahead was
  a flicker of light reflected off another airship's fabric. That would be
  the old Dragon fighting to gain height. She'd caught up with the armada. It
  was good to see her so close; Peter had friends aboard her. They were not
  alone here in the upper air.
  It was late afternoon. Still the airships glowed with sunlight. Soon, as
  the sun sank lower, the airships would darken one by one, darken like
  lights being extinguished. Then, when even the highest one went dark, they
  would move off towards England. Peter shivered; it was cold up here, very
  cold.
  'Hennig!'called Peter loudly. He knew where the fellow would be hiding: all
  the gunners took shelter, but Hennig was the laziest.
  'What's wrong, Herr Leutnant?' He emerged blinking into the light and
  behind him came the loader, a diminutive youth named Stein, who followed
  the gunner everywhere. Stein was a Bolshevik agitator, though so far he'd
  been too sly to be caught spreading sedition amongst the seamen. Still, his
  cunning hadn't saved him from several nasty beatings from fellow sailors
  who opposed his political views. Hennig was not thought to be a Bolshevik,
  but the two men were individualistic to the point of eccentricity, and
  neither would be welcomed into other gun teams. So they had formed an
  alliance, a pact of mutual assistance. Erich Hennig pushed his assistant
  gently aside. It was a gesture that said that if there was any blame to be
  taken he would take it. 'What's wrong, Leutnant? he said again. Hennig was
  a slim, pale youth of about Peter's age. His dark eyes were heavy-fidded,
  his lips thin and bloodless.
 'You should be at the gun, Hennig.'

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  Ja, Herr Leutnant.' Hennig smiled. It was a provocative and superior smile,
  the smile a man gave to show himself and others that he was not subject to
  authority. It was a smile for Peter Winter alone: the two men knew each
  other well. Winter had known Hermig since long before both men volunteered
  for the navy. Erich Hennig lived in Wedding; his father was a skilled
  cooper who worked in the docks mending damaged barrels. The apartment in
  which he grew up, with half a dozen brothers and sisters, was cramped and
  gloomy. At school Hennig proved below average at lessons, but he earned
  money by playing the piano in Bierivirtschaften - stand-up bars - and seedy
  clubs. It was a club owner who brought Erich Hennig's talent to the
  attention of the amazing Frau Wisliceny. And through her efforts Hennig
  spent three years studying composition and theory at the conservatoire. By
  the time war broke out, Erich Hermig was being spoken of as a talent to
  watch. In April 1914 he'd given a series of recitals - mostly Chopin and
  Brahms - at a small concert hall near the Eden Hotel. There was even a
  paragraph about it in the newspaper: 'promising,' said the music critic.
  Peter had met Hennig frequently at Frau Wisliceny's house. Once they'd even
  played duets, but no friendship ever developed between them. Hennig was
  fiercely competitive. He saw the privileged Peter Winter as a spoiled
  dilettante who lacked the passionate love for music that Hennig knew. He'd
  actually heard Peter Winter discussing with the Wisliceny daughters whether
  he should pursue a career in music, study higher mathematics, or just
  prepare himself for a job alongside his father. This enraged Hennig. For
  Hennig it was a betrayal of talent. How could any talented musician - and
  even Erich Hennig admitted to himself, if not to others, that Peter Winter
  was no less talented than himself - speak of any other career?
  'When the telephone rings, you make sure you answer it,' said Peter.
 'I do, Herr Leutnant.' He continued leaning against the gun.
 'You should be standing to attention, Hennig.'
 'I'm manning the gun, Herr Leutnant.'
  The wretch always had an answer ready. And Peter well knew that any
  complaint about Hennig would not be welcome. Hennig played piano in the
  officers'mess. He could be an engaging young man when he tried, and he had
  a lot of supporters amongst the senior ranks. When the beer and wine were
  flowing and the old songs were sung until the small hours (if the morning,
  Hennig became a sort of unofficial member of the officers' club. It would
  be a foolish young

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 officer who punished him for what might sound like no reason but jealousy.
 For Peter would never be able to play the sort of music that got a party
 going. In this respect he admired Hennig's talent and envied those years
 that Hennig had spent strumming untuned pianos for drunken clubgoers. He
 nnig always found under his fingertips the right melodies for the right
 moments. And he remembered them. He knew the tune the Kapitdnleutnant had
 danced to the night he met his wife. He knew those bits of Strauss that the
 observation officer could hum. He knew when the captain might be induced to
 sing his inimitable tuneless version of 'I'm Going to Maxim's' and changed
 key to help him; and he knew the hymn tunes for which there were words that
 could be sung only after the captain departed.
  Peter Winter's musical talent was the talent of the mathematician, and, as
  was the case with most mathematicians, Bach was his first musical choice.
  Peter's love for Bach was a reflection of his upbringing, his social class,
  and the time and place in which he lived. There was a measured orderliness
  and formality to Bach's music: a promise of permanence that most Europeans
  took for granted. Playing Bach, Peter displayed a skill and devotion that
  Hennig could never equal. But Hennig never played Bach. And Peter never
  played the piano in the officers' mess, where Bach was not revered.
  Peter went to the telephone, swung the handle round until the control
  gondola answered. 'Upper gun position. Testing,'said Peter.
  'Your voice is loud and clear, Herr Leutnant,' said the pettyofficer
  signalman.
 Peter replaced the earpiece. 'Carry on, Hennig,' he said.
  'I will, Herr Leutnant,' said Hennig. And as Peter started on the long and
  treacherous vertical ladder, he heard the loader titter. He decided it was
  better not to hear it.
  As he picked his way back down the ladder to the keel, he thought about his
  exchange with Hennig. He knew he'd come out of it badly. He always came out
  of such exchanges badly. He didn't have the right temperament to deal with
  the Hennigs of this world. He had tried, God knows he'd tried. Early in
  their first training flights, on one of the old Hansa passenger zeppelins,
  he'd talked to Hennig and suggested he apply for officer training. Hennig
  had taken it as some subtle sort of insult and had rejected the idea with
  contempt.
  But in the forefront of Peter's mind was the fact that Hennig had lately
  become more than triendly with Lisl Wisliceny, whom Peter considered his
  girl. Particularly hurtful was the latest letter from Lisl. Until now she'd
  been pressing Peter to become engaged to her.

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 Peter, reluctant to face the sort of scene that his father would make in
 such circumstances, had found excuses. But in her latest letter Lisl had
 written that she now agreed with Peter, that they were both too young to
 think of marriage, and that she should see more people while Peter was away.
 And by 'people' she meant Erich Hermig. That much Peter was certain about.
 Only after Peter had taken Lisl to the opera did young Hennig suddenly begin
 to show his interest in this, the youngest of the Wisliceny daughters. And
 Hennig got far more opportunities to go to Berlin than Peter got. For the
 other ranks there were two weekend passes a month if they were not listed on
 the combat-ready sheet or assigned to guard duties. But officers were in
 short supply at the airship base. And, as any young officer knows, that
 meant that the junior commissioned ranks worked hard enough to prevent the
 shortage of officers, bringing extra work to those with three or more gold
 rings on their sleeve.
  Damn Hennig! Well, Peter would show him. Little did Hermig realize it, but
  his insolence, and his pursuit of Peter's girt, would be just what was
  needed to make Peter into the international-class pianist that Frau
  Wisliceny said he could become. From now on he would practise three hours
  a day. It would mean getting up at four in the morning, but that would not
  be difficult for him. There was a piano in the storage shed. Though it was
  old and out of tune, that would be no great difficulty. Peter could tune a
  piano, and there was a carpenter on the Dragon who would help him get it
  into proper working order, a decent old petty officer named Becker. He'd
  worked as an apprentice in a piano factory and knew everything about them.
  For the next half-hour Peter was kept busy with his charts. Having missed
  his lunch, he became hungry enough to dip into his ration bag. The food
  supplied for these trips was not very appetizing. There were hardboiled
  eggs and cold potatoes, some very hard pieces of sausage and a thick slice
  of black rye bread. There was also a bar of chocolate, but for the time
  being he saved the chocolate. If they went high, where even the black bread
  turned to slabs of ice that had to be shattered with a hammer, the
  chocolate was the only substance that didn't freeze solid. He took a
  hardboiled egg and nibbled at it. If he could get down to the rear-engine
  car, there might be a chance of some hot pea soup or coffee. The
  engineering officer let the mechanics warm it on the engine exhaust pipes.
  In some of the zeppelins there was constant hot coffee from an electric hot
  plate in the control gondola, but on this airship the captain wouldn't
  allow such devices to be used because of the fire risk.

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  When his calculations were complete, Peter turned to watch the men in the
  control gondola. At the front was a seaman at the helm. He steered while
  another crewman beside him, at the same sort of wheel, adjusted the
  elevators to keep the airship level. This was said to be the most
  difficult job in the control room, although Peter had never tried his
  hand at it. A good elevator man was able to anticipate each lurch and
  wallow and turn the wheel to meet each gust of wind. The control gondola
  was like a little greenhouse into which machinery had been packed.The
  largest box, a sort of cupboard, was the radio, for keeping in touch with
  base and with the other airships. There was the master compass with an
  are to measure the angle to the horizon, a variometer for measuring
  descent or climb, an electric thermometer to measure the temperature of
  the gas in the envelope, and there were the vitally important ballast
  controls. At the front, where the captain stood alongside the helmsman,
  was the bombrelease switchboard and a battery of lamps for signalling and
  for landing.
  Tonight's plan was simple: the main body of airships would attack London,
  approaching from over the Norfolk coast while two army airships were sent
  north to fool the defences by making a feint attack along the river
  Humber. The plan itself was good enough, although its lack of originality
  meant that the British would not be fooled.
  And the attack started too early. Even the captain, a man whose formal
  naval training prevented him from criticizing the High Command or his
  senior colleagues, said it was a bit early when the first of the airships
  moved forward from the place at which they'd hovered for three hours. The
  whole idea of waiting was so that the sky would be totally dark when the
  airships crossed the English coastline. But it wasn't dark. Even the
  English countryside, some six thousand feet below them, was not quite
  darkened. Peter had no trouble following the map. He could see the
  rivers, and many of the villages were brightly lit. And that meant that
  the British could see them. The alarms would go off, London would be made
  dim, and civilians would go to the bomb shelters. Worse, the pilots would
  stand by their planes and the gunners would load the guns; their
  reception would be a hot one.
  All the time he watched the horizon; there was always some sort of glow
  from London, no matter how stringently the inhabitants doused their
  lights. Then he spotted it, and as they came nearer to London Peter could
  see the looping shape of the river Thames. There was no way that could
  be hidden. Suddenly the guns started. 109
          Nineteen hundred and sixteen

 Flickers of light at first as the gunners tried to get the range, but then
 the flashes came closer. Staring down, Peter spotted the Houses of
 Parliament on the riverbank. And then the shape of London - well known to
 him more because of his study of target maps than because of any memories
 that the sight evoked - was recognizable.
  'Prepare for action! Open bomb doors!' He noted the exact time: 23o4 hours.
  At first he was going to advise dropping bombs on the Houses of Parliament,
  but the briefing clearly said railway stations. There were two right below:
  Waterloo and Charing Cross. Peter signalled and the captain ordered the
  first lot of bombs released. There was a series of flashes as they hit, and
  though Peter could imagine the terror and destruction they had brought, he
  had no deep feeling of remorse or regret. The British had had every chance
  to stay out ofthe war, but they had decided to interfere, and now they must
  face the consequences.
  Crash! The second lot of bombs were striking somewhere south of the river.
  It was mostly just workers' housing on that side of the water. The captain
  should have awaited Peter's signal, but everyone got excited. There were
  more explosions, though without any corresponding lights on the ground. He
  suddenly realized that it was the sound of the British anti-aircraft guns.
  They were very close, and for the first time on such a war flight Peter
  felt a little afraid.
  At least there were no searchlights here in the very heart of town. The
  British had concentrated their searchlights to the northeast and along the
  approaches. They could be seen there now, steadily moving in search of the
  zeppelins that were behind them. Wait: they were clustering together.
  They'd caught someone. Two more antiaircraft shells exploded very close. In
  the gondola Peter heard the captain order the firing of a red Very pistol
  light. It was a trick -pretending to be a British fighter plane ordering
  the guns silent - but the 'colour of the night' was changed sometimes hour
  by hour, and the gunners were not often tricked. The light went arcing out
  into the darkness, a red firework sinking slowly.
  'Drop water ballast forward!' murmured the captain, and immediately the
  orders were given. Peter hung on tight, knowing that the airship would tilt
  upwards to an alarming angle as she began to rise. There was the whoosh of
  water rushing through the traps. There she went! The gunfire explosions
  dropped away below them like the repeated sparking of a cigarette lighter
  that would not ignite. They continued to rise. Here in the upper air it was
  dark and cold.
 By now a dozen searchlights had fastened on the airship behind

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 them to the north. 'The Dragon!' said a whispered voice in the gondola.
 How could it be the Dragon? She'd been ahead of them. Of course, she was
 always very slow. Those old engines of hers were the subject of endless
 grim jokes. They'd been promised new engines again and again, but all the
 new engines were needed for new airships.
  The telephone rang and was answered by Hildmann. 'Numbertwo gun position
  report enemy aircraft,' he said.
 'Switch off engines!'
  The silence came as a sudden shock after so many hours with the throbbing
  sound of the engines. Everyone throughout the airship remained as quiet
  as possible and listened.
  It was Peter, staring down to the townscape below who spotted him, a
  large biplane climbing in a wide circle trying to get into position for
  an attack. The fighters liked to rake the airships from stern to nose,
  using the new explosive and incendiary bullets. 'Fighter!' He pointed.
  The captain bit his lip and turned his head to see the instruments. The
  airship was still at the slightly nose-up angle that provided extra
  dynamic lift.
  Suddenly all was grey: the sky, the ground and all the windows. The
  zeppelin had passed up into a patch of'cloud. Now, with all speed, the
  airship was 'weighed off. The upward movement ended and the airship
  stopped, engines off and completely silent, shrouded in the grey wet
  cloud. The mist around them brightened as the searchlight beams raked the
  cloud's underside and made the water vapour glow.
  They could hear the aeroplane now. It had followed them into the cloud
  and passed near on the starboard side, its engine faltering as the
  dampness of the cloud affected the carburettor. It circled once, as if
  the fighter pilot knew where they were hiding, and then, after another,
  wider circle, the sound of the plane's engine grew fainter.
  'Restart engines!' The clutches were engaged till the props were just
  turning, treading the air so that the airship scarcely moved. They waited
  five minutes or more before dropping more water ballast and recommencing
  their upward movement. Suddenly they were out of the cloud and the stars
  were overhead. They were very high now and could see a long way. Over
  northern London clusters of searchlights were still moving slowly across
  the sky, searching for the airships heading back that way.
 Peter provided a course to steer, and slowly - the engines

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 weakened on this thinner air - they headed for home. Everyone was watching
 the horizon, where the English defences were concentrated. Every few minutes
 there was a flicker of gunfire, like fireflies on a summer's evening. That
 was the gauntlet that they must also run.
 'Look there
  One by one the searchlights swung over to one point in the sky, forming a
  pyramid with a silvery shape at its tip. Then the silvery shape went red.
  At first the red glow was scarcely brighter than the searchlight beams
  below it, Then it went to a much lighter red, as a cigar tip brightens at
  a sudden intake of breath.
  'My God!' Even the (aptain was moved to cry out aloud. Everyone stared.
  Flight discipline, rank, was for a moment forgotten. All stared at the
  terrible sight. None of them had seen such a thing before, except in their
  nightmares. The stricken airship flared white like a torch, so bright that
  it blinded them, and they were unable properly to see the dull-red sun into
  which it changed before dropping earthwards. 'rhen the fiery tangle
  vanished into a cloud, and the cloud turned pink and boiled like a great
  furnace.
  It was in the silence that followed that the telephone rang. The
  observation officer - Hildmann - answered tersely. He looked round the
  control gondola and stared at Peter. If there was a job, then Peter was the
  one likely to be spared from duties here in the car. The course home was
  set, and the charts were already folded away, the pencils in their leather
  case in the rack over the plotting table.
  So it was Peter who was sent to speak with the sailmaker. The gas bags were
  holed; the captain must know how badly. Was it the small punctures that the
  scout's machine guns made, or the far more serious jagged tears from shell
  fragments? Were the leaks low down, or were they in the upper sections of
  the bags, where a leak meant the loss of all the gas it held? Peter looked
  around to find an extra scarf and the sheepskin gloves that he'd removed to
  use the pencils. It would be cold back there inside the envelope, even
  colder than it was here in the drafty control gondola. He'd found only one
  glove by the time Hildmann shouted to him again. No matter: he'd keep his
  hand in his pocket.
  He went up the ladder again. It was dark and dangerous picking his way
  along the keel between the lines of gas bags. It was like walking down the
  aisle of some echoing cathedral, except that huge silky balloons floated
  inside and filled the whole nave, from floor to vaulting.

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         'You're a good, reliable officer'

  Some ofthe giant bags were hanging soft and empty. It was here that the
  sailmaker was already at work, patching the leaks. He called down from the
  darkness: 'Herr Leutnant.' The sailmaker was clinging to the girders high
  above him. Peter climbed with difficulty. The lack of oxygen made him feel
  dizzy.
  It was while Peter was inspecting the damaged gas bags that the
  anti-aircraft battery scored its hit. There was a loud bang that echoed in
  the framework. The airship careened, remained for a moment on its side, so
  that everything tilted and the half-emptied bags enveloped the two men.
  Peter fought the silky fabric aside as the airship rolled slowly back and
  then steadied again. 'What the devil was that?' said the sailmaker. Peter
  didn't reply, but he knew they were hit and hit badly. It was a miracle
  that there was no fire. 'Stay here,' said Peter. 'I'll find out what's
  happened.'
  When he got back to the control gondola, it was in ruins. The rear portion
  of the car was gone completely, and a large section of the thin metal floor
  was missing, so that, still standing on the short communication ladder to
  the keel, Peter could see the landscape thousands of feet below them. The
  helmsman and rudder man werc nowhere to be seen: the explosion had blown
  them out into the thin air.
  There was broken window celluloid everywhere, and the aluminiurn girders
  were bent into curious shapes, like the tendrils of some exotic vine. The
  body of the captain - hatless to reveal an almost bald head - was sprawled
  on the floor in the corner, his head slumped on his chest. The observation
  officer had survived, of course: Hildmann was a tough old bird, the sort of
  man who always survived. He had somehow scrambed across the two remaining
  girders and got to the front of the car. He was manning the elevator wheel.
  When he saw Peter coming down through the hatch, he pointed to the wheel
  that controlled the rudders and then went back to his task.
  'How bad?' Hildmann asked him after Peter had swung himself across the
  gaping hole to take his place at the wheel and steer for home.
  'The gas bags? Two of them are bad, and some of the holes are high. But the
  sailmaker is a good man, and his assistant is at work, too.'
  The observation officer grunted. 'We can let it go lower, much lower.' His
  voice was strained as he gasped for breath. Hildmann was no longer young.
  At this height the lack of oxygen caused

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 dizziness and headaches and every little exertion seemed exhausting. Peter's
 clamber down into the car had made his ears ring, and his pulse was beating
 at almost twice its normal rate. In the engine cars, and up on the gun
 positions, men would be suffering nausea and vomiting. It was worth going
 high to avoid the defences, but today they hadn't avoided them. 'A lucky
 shot,' said Hildmann, as if reading Peter's mind.
 'There will be more guns along the coast,' warned Peter.
  'We must risk that. The gas will be escaping fast at this height-, soon
  we'll lose altitude whether we want to or not. And the engines will give us
  more power lower down.'
  Peter didn't answer. Hildmann was deluding himself. The pressure inside the
  bags would make little difference. Whatever they decided, the airship was
  continuing to sink, due to the lost hydrogen from the punctured gas cells.
  Peter was having great difficulty at the helm of the great ship. He had
  never touched the wheel before-, the seamen given this job were carefully
  chosen and specially trained. Holding the brute, as it wilfully tried to
  fly its own course through the open sky, was a far harder task than he ever
  would have believed. He had new respect for the men he'd watched doing it
  so calmly and effortlessly. And as the thought came to him, he realized
  that now he would never be able to tell them so: both men had long since
  hit the ground at terminal velocity, which meant enough force to indent
  themselves deep into the earth.
 'Is he patching the holes?' said Hildmann.
  'The sailmaker and his assistant,' affirmed Peter. 'They can't work
  miracles, though.'
  In other circumstances Hildmann might have considered Peter's reply
  insubordinate, but now he seemed not to notice the apparent disrespect.
  'We're sinking still,' said Hildmann, at last facing the reality of their
  danger. 'They'd better work fast.' The airship dropped lower and lower
  until the altimeter - an unreliable device worked by barometric pressure -
  warned them they were as low as they dared go in darkness. Then it became
  a battle to stay in the air. In other parts of the airship, crewmen, on
  their own initiative, began to throw overboard everything that could be
  spared. Desperately men dumped the reserve fuel, arnmunition boxes, then
  ammunition; finally, as they crossed the coast near Yarmouth, the guns
  went, too.
 'Can you work the radio?'asked Hildmann.
 'I can try, Herr Oberleutnant.' The radio looked to be in bad

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 shape, the glass dials shattered and a fresh bright-silver gash across its
 metal case. There was little or no chance that it would still be working.
 The clock over it had stopped, a mute record of the exact moment the shell
 burst struck.
  'We'll probably come down in the sea. We need to know the position ofthe
  nearest ship.'
  And find it, thought Peter. He had only the haziest idea of their present
  position, and finding such a dot in the North Sea would need a navigational
  skill far beyond his own crude vectors and sums. But for a moment he was
  spared such tests; there was no question of his leaving the helm until a
  relicf could be summoned, and the telephone link was severed.
  'Better riot look down,' said Hildmann in a voice that was almost
  avuncular.
  Had the old man just discovered that, thought Peter. The void beyond the
  gap in the car's floor was the most terrifying sight he'd ever seen. After
  that first shock he'd kept his eyes away from the jagged hole.
 '_7awohl,, Herr Oberleutnant!'
 'You're a good, reliable officer, Winter.'
  'Thank you, Herr Oberleutnant,' said Peter but he wished the observation
  officer hadn't said it. It was too much like an epitaph. He had the feeling
  that Hildmann had said it only because their chances of survival were so
  slim. It would be just like him to be writing their final report in his
  head before going to meet his Maker.
  'Request the Oberleutnant's permission to change course five degrees
  southwards.'
 :Why?' asked Hildmann.
 The compass must be wrong. Dawn is coming up.'
  The observation officer stared at where the horizon would be if the night
  had not been so very dark. Then he saw what Peter had been looking at for
  five minutes: a dull-red cotton thread on the silky blackness of the night.
  Hildmann looked at his watch to see whether the sun was on schedule. 'Yes,
  change course,' he said, having decided that it was.
  The dawn came quickly, changing the sky to orange and then a sulphurous
  yellow before lighting the grey sea beneath them. Crosslit, the choppy
  water was Dot a reassuring sight.
 'Is that the coast ahead?'
 Yes, Herr Oberleutnant.'
 Won't need the radio now.'

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 'No, Herr Oberleutnant.'
 'Just as well. I don't think it's working.'
 'I don't think it is, Herr Oberleutnant.'
 'Do you think we'll be able to get it down in the right place?'
  'I think we can, Herr Oberleutnant.' Hildmann would have been outraged by
  any other response, but he smiled grimly and nodded. Peter wondered how old
  he was; rumours said he was a grandfather.
 'We lost the Dragon.'
  'Yes, Herr Oberleutnant.' Trees appeared behind the desolate sandy
  coastline. They were very low. He stared down into the darkness.
 'Good men on the Dragon.'
 'Yes, Herr Oberleutnant.'
 'Oh my God!'
  Everything happened so suddenly that there was no time to avert the crash.
  The elevator cables had been in shreds for hours. Hildmann didn't realize
  that the movements of his wheel depended upon a single steel thread until
  the final thread snapped and the elevators slammed over to put the airship
  into a violent nose-down attitude. It all happened in only a few seconds.
  First there was the sudden snapping of the control cables: bangs like
  explosions came as the released steel cables thrashed about, ripping
  through the gas bags and tearing into the soft aluminium. The lurch started
  Hildmann's wheel spinning and sent Hildmann staggering across the car so
  that he stumbled and was thrown half out of the hole in the floor. Then
  came the big crash of the airship striking the tree tops.
  Branches came into the car from every side, and a snowstorm of leaves and
  wood and sawdust filled the control room, until the weakened gondola was
  torn into pieces by the black trees. There was a scream as Hildmann
  disappeared into the darkness below, and then the airship met a tree that
  would not yield, and, with a crash and the shriek of tortured metal, the
  vast framework collapsed upon him and Peter lost consciousness.

          'My poor Harry'

      In Vienna that same September morning it was bright and clear. The
      low-pressure region that had provided the zeppelins with cloud
      cover over England had broken. Southern Germany and Austria had
      blue skies and cold winds.

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             'My poor Harry'

  Martha Som16 - or Frau Winter, as she had engraved on her visiting cards -
  was awake. She'd been an early riser ever since she was a child, when she'd
  got up at five every morning to prepare the work in her father's back-room
  tailor shop.
  Harald Winter was sound asleep. He snorted and turned over. 'Wake up!
  Harry.' She had a tray with coffee and warm fresh bread.
 He grunted.
 'Wake up! You were snoring.'
 He rubbed his face to bring himself awake. 'Snoring?'
  'Yes. Loud enough to wake the street.' She smiled sweetly and forgivingly.
  He looked at her suspiciously. Veronica had never mentioned his snoring,
  nor had any of the other women he enjoyed on a more-orless regular basis.
  'It's an ugly habit, snoring,' he said.
  He opened his eyes to see her better. She was wearing the magnificent silk
  dressing gown he'd bought for heron one of his trips to Switzerland. It was
  black and gold, with huge Chinese tigers leaping across it. He'd thought at
  the time how like Martha the snarling tigers looked. 'It doesn't matter,
  darling. You can't help it,' she said.
  The truth was that Harald Winter did not snore, but teasing him was one of
  the few retaliations she got for being neglected.
  She set the tray down on the bed and slid back under the bedclothes. This
  was her very favourite time: just her and Harry at breakfast. He gave her
  a qwck hug and kiss before taking a kaiser roll and waiting for her to pour
  his coffee and add exactly the amount of cream and sugar he Liked. From the
  street below came the sound of horses' hoofs and wheels upon the cobbles
  and the jingle of harness. It was a large contingent of field artillery
  moving off to the war. The noise continued for a long dme, but neither
  Harry nor Martha went to the window to look. Soldiers had become too common
  a sight in the streets of Vienna for breakfast to be interrupted.
  Prompted by the sounds of the horse artillery, Martha said, 'The war's
  going badly for us, isn't it, Harry?' She removed the tray to the side
  table and came back to bed.
 'It goes up and down: wars are always like that.'
  'And you don't care, as long as you sell your airships and planes, and make
  lots of money.'
 'My God, but you are a little firebrand, aren't you?'
  He grabbed her wrist and clutched it tight. It hurt, but she wouldn't give
  him the satisfaction of complaining. In fact, his physical strength
  attracted her even when it was directed against her.

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          Nineteen hundred and sixteen

 In the same way, her strong-willed antagonism fascinated him. She was the
 onlv woman who openly defied him.
  'I heard &re were wooden airships now,' she said spitefully, 'and smaller,
  collapsible ones better than Count Zeppelin makes.'
  He smiled. 'I have persuaded the navy that airships made of wood and glue
  are not suitable for use over the sea in bad weather.'
 'You think only of money!' she said.
  He released her arm and said softly, 'How can you say that, you little
  bitch, when I have two sons fighting for us?'
 'I'm sorry, Harry. I didn't mean it.'
  He gently pulled the silk negligee from her shoulders so that he could look
  at her pale body. 'You are exquisite, darling Martha. All is forgiven in
  your embrace.' It was the frivolous, supercilious manner he adopted for
  their bouts of lovemaking. It was a way of avoiding any serious discussion.
  But as he reached for her there was a knock at the bedroom door. Martha
  twisted away from his hand and, pulling her dressing gpwn tight, went to
  the door.
  It was her maidservant. He couldn't hear what was said. Despite
  reassurances from his physician, he was convinced that he was growing deaf.
  'What is it?' he said as she returned to the bed. 'Come back to bed, my
  little tiger.' But she remained where she was, a petite, pale figure, her
  face forlorn, with jet-black hair tumbling over her eyes till she pushed it
  back with her small, perfect hands.
  'The zeppelins over England last night ... five didn't return. Your son
  Peter . . .' She couldn't go on. Tears filled her eyes.
  'My Peter . . . What?' He got out of bed, and went to her and held her. She
  was sobbing. 'My poor Harry,' she said.

 It was almost noon next day when Peter started to regain his senses. Even
 before he tried to open his eyes, he smelled the ether in his nostrils. The
 hospital room was filled with yellow light: the sun coming through a lowered
 blind. When he moved his feet - an exploratory movement to discover if he
 was all in one piece - he felt the stiftly starched sheets against his toes.
 It was only then that he realized he was not alone in the hospital room. Two
 men in white coats were standing neai the window, looking down at a
 clipboard.
  '. . . the only one to escape from the forward gondola,' said one voice.
 'And completely unharmed, you say?'
 'Just scratches, bruises, and the finger.'
             'My Poor Harry'

 'Did he lose the finger?'
 'No, he had the luck of the devil. I just removed the tip of it.'
  'And it was the left hand. too; well, I can't imagine that that will make
  a scrap of difference to any young chap.'
 'Unless he was a pianist . . .'
  'And the pianist - Hennig, isn't it? - was the one with the broken ankle.
  God moves in strange ways; I've always said that.'
  'It's a curious war, isn't it? The zeppelin staff plan to bomb SaintOmer's
  town hall when all the top Allied military commanders are there together
  with the King of England and the Belgian King. And the Kaiser forbids it.'
 'You disagree?'
  'After a night looking at the cruelly mutilated bodies of so many very
  young men, I simply say it's a curious war.'
  Peter heard one of them hang the clipboard back on its hook before they
  went out of his room, but he kept his eyes closed and pretended to be
  asleep.

 In England the next day, visitors went to the wreckage of the zeppelin that
 had been shot down near London. Frederick William Wile - one time Berlin
 correspondent of The Daily Mail - wrote '. . . even those who felt most
 bitterly about t he brutality of raids upon unarmed civilian populations
 could not refrain from pity at the sight.'
  Wile continued: 'It is one of the traditions of the Hohenzollerns that the
  King of Prussia must ride across the battlefields on which his soldiers
  have fallen and took his dead men in the face. Trench warfare and a decent
  regard for his own skin have prevented William 11 from carrying out this
  ghoulish rite in his war. But I wish some cruel Fate might have taken the
  Kaiser by his trembling hand yesterday morning and led him to that
  rain-soaked meadow in Hertfordshire, and bade him look as I looked at the
  charred remains of human wreckage which a few hours before was the crew of
  an Imperial German airship. I wish Count Zeppelin, the creator of the
  particular brand of Kultur which sent the baby-killers to their doom, might
  have been in the Supreme War Lord's entourage. I wondered, standing there
  by the side of that miserable heap of exposed skulls, stumps of arms and
  legs, shattered bones and scorched flesh, whether the Kaiser would have
  revoked the vow he spoke at DonauEschingen in the Black Foi est eight years
  ago when he christened the inventor of airship frightfulness, "the greatest
  German of the twentieth century".'

                119
            1917 
       Not so loud, voices carry in the night'

 Paul Winter had been called 'little Pauli' for so much of his life that, now
 seventeen-years old, he still thought of himself in that way. He had the!
 cherubic face that made some lucky men youthful and attractive all their
 lives. Some of the others called him 'Lucky'. So what rotten luck that a
 member of the Prussian Officer Corps on active service on the Western Front
 should be attached to this wretched Royal Bavarian infantry regiment. What
 was 'little Pauli' doing sitting in this deep dugout on the Western Front,
 Listening to the muffled thumps of enemy shells exploding? The morning
 bombardment had started with the adjoining sector, but now they were landing
 closer and closer. He tried to push the fears out of his mind and
 concentrate upon writing a letter to his parents. The dugout was dark; he
 had only the light of one flickering candle. He used a penknife to sharpen
 the stub of his indelible pencil, and he gave a deep sigh.
  But this introspection didn't mean that he felt in any way sorry for
  himself. The last remnants of self-pity had been eliminated during his
  years at the cadet school. Pauli accepted life day by day as it came but
  that didn't mean that he never asked himself why his life had for so long
  consisted of spartan food, strict discipline, and so little rest. A regime
  to which had lately been added gluey mud, mortal danger, and long periods
  of boredom. Pauli was at heart an easy-going, pleasure-loving fellow who
  wanted only to live and let live.

 My dearest parents,
  Thank you for the parcel. It arrived safety. It was so kind of Cook to knit
  the soc ks for me, but they are very big - two sizes too big. No matter,
  one of the other men will benefit. I shared the tin of meat with only my
  friend Alex but we had a little party to eat all the other food. You must
  not worry about me. I am

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       'Not so loud, voices carry in the nighe

 many miles away from where the real fighting is taking place. Most of
 the time I am in Headquarters and cannot even hear the artillery fire
  He stopped writing. Perhaps that was going too far. Even back in Brussels
  they could hear the artillery fire, and his parents might well know that.
  He added:

 except when the wind blows from the west. Peter is coming to see me
 today. I will have lunch with him at Headquarters.
  He wondered what to say next. Several times reduced almost to despair by
  the cold, filth, mud and cruel loss of friends, he'd attempted to write
  a letter that truthfully described what it was like here. But each time
  he'd abandoned the effort and scribbled the same sort of reassuring
  banalities that everyone else sent home to keep the family ignorant and
  happy. So he wrote:

  The weather here is good for this time of year and the war is going
  well for us. I must end this letter now. It is very early in the
  morning and I have a lot to do.
   I will write again - a longer letter - after Peter's visit,
        Your loving son,
  Carefully he signed it and read it again before he put it into an
  envelope. He was always promising 'a longer letter' but he never wrote
  longer letters, just short thank-you notes. Though he wrote wonderful
  letters in his mind, he never got them on paper. He felt constantly
  guilty about neglecting his parents. He knew how much they liked to hear
  from him and how much they worried all the time. Did all sons feel such
  guilt about their relationship with their parents. Most specifically, did
  his brother, Peter, feel guilty about his relationship with them? He knew
  the answer to that even before asking the question. Peter didn't neglect
  them. He wrote a long informative letter to them every week. Pauli had
  seen the letters piled up high on his father's desk. They read them again
  and again. And yet he knew that they didn't worry about Peter as they did
  about him, especially since Peter was taken off flying duties after the
  crash. Since Christmas 1916 Peter had been assigned to liaison duties in
  Brussels, and his life was no more dangerous than it would be at home in
  Berlin. Here on the front line, life was more hazardous; the regiment had
  lost fourteen officers in five weeks, five dead and nine wounded. From
  his pocket he took the postcard that Peter had sent arranging their
  meeting. For the thousandth time he made sure he had the date,

                121
         Nineteen hundred and seventeen

 time, and place right. He put the postcard away again with other cards from
 Peter that made a bundle so thick he couldn't button his breast pocket over
 them. Ever since cadet school, Peter had sent postcards regularly: every two
 weeks, never more than three. Sometimes it was no more than a sentence - a
 joke, a greeting, a memory from the past, one of their nanny's oft-repeated
 Scottish aphorisms. How did Peter know how important the cards were to him?
 Pauli never told him and never even responded to them. Peter, Peter, Peter.
 How he missed him.
  'Runner!' The command was that of a Prussian officer. Pauli was always a
  little surprised to hear the voice coming from himself.
  'Herr Leutnant?' The man almost fell down the steps and into the dugout. He
  was typical of the farm boys that made up most of the regiment. The rest of
  them were older men with families or physical disabilities that had kept
  them out of the war until last year, when the casualties meant that more
  and more men were needed. They were only half trained. The regiment should
  not be holding a section of the fine: it should be at a training camp,
  where these fellows could learn to march and shoot. On the ranges, half of
  them couldn't even hit the target, let alone score. The machine-gun teams
  were pitifully slow at stripping the guns or even at clearing them when
  they jammed. If the British infantry decided to attack on this sector, they
  would be able to walk through. Or at least that's the way it appeared to
  those who hadn't seen the state of the British soldiers facing them. But
  Pauli had spoken with enough British prisoners to know that the winter of
  endless rain, and the waterlogged trenches, had brought enemy morale down
  to a point where some Tommies were thankful for the prospect of a dry POW
  camp away from the fighting.
  The theory held by the generals at Imperial Army HQ was that a few
  experienced NCOs and some trained Prussian officers for each company would
  work a miraculous transformation in this fighting force, but of course it
  wouldn't. The 'trained Prussian officers' were no better than boys from
  cadet schools, some with less training than Pauli. And as for the
  experienced NCOs, they were too damned experienced. They were disillusioned
  veterans, many of them only recently discharged from hospital, men who had
  hoped to spend the rest of the war in safe jobs with training units. Now
  they were back in the front line, but instead of being with their comrades,
  they were wet-nursing this raggle-taggle bunch of stupid peasants, some of
  them not even Bavarians, kids with incomprehensible Austrian accents or
  unpronounceable Hungarian names. No wonder there

                122
        'Not so loud, voices carry in the nighe

 were mutterings of discontent, Marxist leaflets, and every now and again,
 a wound that looked suspiciously like something that might have been
 self-inflicted.
  He put the letter into an oilskin pouch to protect it from the mud, the
  rain and the runner's filthy hands. 'Take this letter to regimental
  Headquarters and tell the clerk to put it with the officers' mail so that
  it goes off this morning. Do you understand?' There was a crash that made
  the candle flicker and some dried pieces of mud fell from the lintels
  overhead. 'That's not very close: the other side of the railway lines ...
  even farther, perhaps.' It was an automatic reaction, (lone always to
  reassure whoever was nearby. Pauli buttoned his precious stub of
  indelible pencil into his jacket.
  'Yes, Herr Leutnant.' The boy didn't believe it, of course; the runners
  got about and knew what was happening. The British artillery were
  softening up the communications trenches so that no reserves would get
  here when they attacked. Rumours said that it would come in two or three
  days' time. Lots of British patrolling lately - that was usually a sign
  of an impending attack. Pauli knew all about it because he was the only
  officer in the regiment who spoke fluent English. He was called upon to
  interrogate the prisoners or sort through the personal effects of the
  British dead before the things were sent back to the intelligence
  officers. Two days, three at the most. A sergeant from the South Wales
  Borderers had virtually admitted it to him.
  The soldier took the oilskin packet and stumbled over his rifle butt,
  striking his helmet against the low doorway as he hurried up the steps
  and out along the trench. Pauli watched him without comment: Pauli, too,
  was inherently clumsy. He, too, stumbled up the steps more times than
  not. Why were some people like that, no matter how hard they tried. Pauli
  would have loved to be adroit and elegant, but he couldn't even dance
  without stepping upon his partner's feet.
  As the antigas flap on the door swung back, a heavy smell of fresh
  cordite and the stink of the latrine buckets came into the dugout. Oh
  well, it was a change from the steady smell of unwashed bodies and
  putrefaction that was the normal atmosphere down here.
  'What's the time?'From one of the wooden bunks built into the far wall
  a figure swung his legs to the floor and then slowly emerged from the
  blanket that cocooned him. Alex Homer - Pauli's close friend at the cadet
  school - had found himself attached to the same regiment. Both boys had
  hoped to be assigned to one of the better Prussian units - cavalry,
  guards, or dragoons - instead of this collection of

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 conscripts. But they were together, and that was the one consolation in the
 whole miserable, tormented existence they led.
  'Next time I'm in Wertheims department store, I'll get you a watch -with an
  illuminated face,' said Pauli sarcastically.
  'Well, that might bea long time,'said Alex. He rubbed his chin to decide
  whether he needed a shave badly enough for the company corpmander to
  admonish him. He decided to risk it: seventeen-yearold chins did not show
  much stubble per day. Leutnant Alex Homer was already acquiring the look of
  the Prussian officer. A duel at cadet school had left him with a sabre cut
  along his jaw, and the liceinfested conditions here on the front line
  required him to have his head almost shaved. But he was not yet the
  austere, unbending Prussian figure: he smiled too much, for one thing, and
  his nose was pert and upturned, the sort of nose more often to be seen on
  farmers' daughters than on Prussian officers.
 'It's three-thirty-two,' said Pauli.
 'What a terrible time to be awake.'
  'Stand-to in fifteen minutes.' At dawn the front-line trenches had to be
  manned, because it was the best time for the British to attack. But, since
  the trenches were full of infantry, it was also a good time for the British
  to strafe them with a barrage of mortar shells.
  Alex Horner groped on the floor to find his cigarettes. Together with the
  matches, he found them in his steel helmet. Unlike most of the soldiers,
  Alex Horner couldn't sleep with his helmet on his head. When he'd got his
  cigarette lit, he tied up the laces of his boots and buttoned up his
  woollen cardigan, his jacket, and the overcoat in which he'd been sleeping.
  He moved slowly, as a man does when drunk. Stress, lack of rest, and the
  stodgy food so lacking in protein made them all a bit robotic.
  'If only the army had not disbanded their airships . . .'said Alex. He put
  some eau de cologne on a dirty handkerchief and wiped his face with it.
  'Well, they have,' said Pauli, who'd heard Alex's sad story a hundred or
  more times
  'My application was (ompleted and approved. The physical exam would have
  been no more than a formality. I'm a hundred per cent fit; you know that,
  Pauli.'
  'I know,' said Pauli. He couldn't be too rude to his friend; they both
  needed someone to complain to. In the absence of any other sympathetic
  friends they told each other the same stories over and over again.

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 'I'd be flying by now.'
 'Perhaps you could transfer to the Naval Airship Division.'
 'They'd never allow that, you know they wouldn't.'
  'I'll talk to my brother when I see him. Perhaps he could arrange
  something for you.'
 'I even bought those books on engine repair and maintenance.'
 'Airships are dangerous. My brother, Peter, was shot down.'
  'You talk to him. Perhaps if I was prepared to go in as a midshipman .
  . .'They both knew that there was no possible chance that he'd be
  permitted to transfer to the navy, but by common consent they talked of
  it often.
  'Have you got your pistol belt and the flashlight? It's time to go,
  Alex.'
  'It's the monotony that gets me down. We'll stand to and freeze for an
  hour; then we'll spend ages while the captain inspects every rifle
  barrel.'
  'Not this morning-, this is Easter Saturday. Wake up, Alex! We're
  assigned to check the sentries and then be at the old supply line when
  the wiring party returns.'
  Alex nodded, but he didn't abandon his moaning. 'Then, when the breakfast
  is coming, the British will mortar the communication trenches and those
  fools will drop our breakfast into the mud, the way they did three times
  last week. On Monday I only got a bread roll and half a cup of coffee.'
 'Don't you ever think of anything else but food and drink, Alex?'
  'What else is there?' It was Alex's 'morning moan'. Pauli had got used
  to his friend's bad moods, which came immediately after waking. In
  another hour he'd be his normal cheery self again. Until then he needed
  to moan. 'I suppose the planes will come over any time now.'
  'It's too early. The attacks last week were planes coming back from
  patrol. The English patrol planes go out at dawn and come back about
  halfan hour later. Perhaps the English pilots will stay in bed for
  Easter.'
 'Where are our planes?'
  'The British believe they must enter our airspace every morning. They say
  it keeps up their fighting spirit. They send the infantry patrols over
  to our trenches for the same reason. They are frightened that their
  soldiers will lose their appetite for the war unless they are sent often
  to fight us.'
 'Is that what you find out when you speak with the prisoners?'

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 'They make no secrei of it.'
  'Is Leutnant Brand on duty this morning?'Alex asked, making the inquiry
  sound as casual as possible, and yet the imminent encounter with the
  dreaded Leutnant Brand was uppermost in the thoughts of both young men.
 'Yes,, he's duty officer.'
  'Jesus Christ!' Alex rubbed his beard again and regretted not shaving, for
  Leutnant Heinrich Brand was a tyrant, a cruel man who lost no opportunity
  to make the lives of his junior officers a misery. Brand was thirty-two
  years old, the son of a baker in a village near the Austrian border. He'd
  entered the Bavarian cavalry as a boy and risen to the rank of Feldwebel by
  1914. It was a rank beyond which he would never have been promoted except
  for the coming of the war. By the end of December 1914 he was a senior NCO
  in the regimental training camp. But it was on the Eastern Front, in the
  fighting of early 1915, that he saved the life of his commanding officer.
  Attacking Cossacks; cut his cavalry regiment to pieces as they retreated
  through woodland that became m
                      ,arsh and then an open piece of ground that gave the
                      Russian cavalry a chance to demonstrate their superior
                      skill and reckless courage. Brand got the Iron Cross
                      and a commission for that day's hard fighting. But the
                      same officers who applauded Brand's bravery did not
                      want to share their mess with this coarse-accented
                      villager, and Brand soon found himselfamongst
                      strangers. And this time he was not even in the
                      cavalry.
  It was dark and cold, and there was rain in the air. The wind was singing
  in the massed barbed wire that filled no-man's-land. As Pauli and Alex
  plodded their way along the duckboards which made a slatted floor for the
  deep trench, both were thinking of Brand. The Leutnant saved his particular
  hatred for these two products of the Prussian army's most exclusive
  officer-cadet school. Brand envied them. He would have given almost
  anything to have the panache, the style and the background - to say nothing
  of the proper Berlin accent - of the two youngsters,
  'I hate him,' said Alex Homer as they negotiated the zigzag trenchline, the
  skirts of their greatcoats heavy with accumulated mud. The sky was clear
  with a thousand stars and a moon that was almost full and very yellow. The
  night was bitterly cold. Underfoot the duckboards had frozen hard into the
  mud, so that they didn't sink under the boys' weight the way they usually
  did in the daytime.
 'Not so loud,' said Pauli. 'Voices carry in the middle of the night

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 like this. Last night I could hear the stretcherbearers taking the
 casualties back to the medical post near Regimental HQ, and that's a long
 way away, isn't it?'
  'What about that Englishman in no-man's-land last week? Did you hear him
  sobbing?'
  'I heard him cursing,' said Pauli. They were both speaking in whispers
  now as they plodded along the trench.
 'That was later.' said Alex. 'That was at the end.'
  'Imagine being out there with a leg shot off. Do you ever think about
  that,, Pauli?'
  'No, I never think about it,' said Pauli. In fact, like all the rest of
  them, he found that such ideas haunted his thoughts and gave him
  nightmares. The shouting and weeping of the mortally wounded Englishman
  had affected all who heard him. Even Leutnant Brand was heard to curse
  the dying man.
  They reached the first sentry. He was standing on the fire step looking
  over the parapet. Even the farm boys could look heroic in such a pose,
  cloaked in a muddy blanket and as still as a statue. 'Any sign of the
  wiring party?' Pauli asked.
  'No, Herr Leutnant,' the sentry answered without turning his head.
  Sentries soon learned how dangerous it was to make any sort of movement
  that might be seen by the British snipers. Twice in the last week snipers
  had killed sentries. Both times the casualties had been men wearing
  glasses. It was assumed that the moonlight - or in one case a flare - had
  glinted on the glass. One of the officers had suggested that men with
  eyeglasses be excused sentry duty, but in a second-rate unit like this,
  with so many men from lower medical categories, it would have been an
  unfair burden on the rest of them.
 'No movement anywhere, Herr Leutnant,' said the sentry.
  It was the same at the next sentry, and the next. But this didn't mean
  that there was no one out there in the twisted, tangled chaos of
  no-man's-land. The British patrols could move silently and swiftly. They
  used trench knives and clubs, More than once in the last month a British
  raiding part had come right over into the German front-line trenches and
  got out again before the alarm could be sounded. They were trying to get
  an officer prisoner: that was usually the reason for such raids: an
  officer prisoner and secret papers that might help their intelligence
  find the place where the German armies joined, for such a place was an
  ideal one to attack when the big offensive came.
  'Leutnant Brand should never have sent out a wiring party on a night like
  this,' said Pauli. 'It's too light.'

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 'The wire was broken.'
  'The wire is always broken. It's murder to send men out to mend it on a
  night like this.'
  They turned the corner and started down the 'old supply line'. These
  trenches, captured from the British, were poorly made by German standards.
  The British infantry always improvised them, with only shallow dugout
  shelters roofed with corrugated iron sheets and none of the deep dugouts
  that were standard design when the German engineers constructed their
  front-line positions. No one liked this section of the front line. Apart
  from the inferior workmanship, the trench system was all the wrong way
  round: the old fire steps faced east and there were 'saps', bombing
  sections and machine-gun positions all on the wrong side, so that they were
  vulnerable to enemy gunfire. Worst of all was the smell. This section of
  the line was littered with ancient corpses that were integrated into the
  earthworks.
  The much-feared Leumant Brand was standing on the fire step in order to
  look across the endless shiny mud of no-man's-land. He wasn't using a
  periscope or the pierced steel that offered some protection. He liked to
  show how fearless he was: he liked to be thought of as brave to the point
  of madness. 'Crazy Heini', the men called him, and he was proud of that
  nickname - although he would have severely punished anyone heard using it.
  He got down from the fire step. 'Horner! Winter! You're both late, you'll
  go on report.' They weren't late of course - they were three minutes early
  - but there would be nothing gained from arguing with him. The major would,
  in any case, believe what Brand told him, or at least the major would
  pretend to believe it. The major was worn out; he did whatever was easiest,
  and arguing with Brand was heavy going. Brand knew the regulations word for
  word - he'd learned them when he was a junior NCO - and now the major had
  long since learned that he was no match for Brand's sort of 'lawyer's
  talk'.
  'Young officers should be setting an example to the men,' said Brand. He
  always said that, but each time he said it as if it was a new, fresh and
  original observation that should be carefully noted. 'Horner! You haven't
  shaved. You people think that you are a law unto yourselves. You think a
  Bavarian regiment isn't good enough for you Prussians. Well, I'll have to
  persuade you it is. And if punishment is the only way, then punishment it
  shall be!' Brand did everything he could to speak like a gentleman, but
  when he got excited his Bavarian accent thickened.

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  Pauli looked at him. When he'd first heard about this Bavarian sergeant
  major who'd become an officer on the battlefield, he'd expected to see some
  red-laced, beer-bellied old fellow with a big nose and a huge moustacht.
  But Brand was younger than the other company commanders, sliDi-hipped and
  rather handsome. His nose was thin and bony and his forehead high, with
  trimmed eyebrows and quick, crazy eyes. Hii eyes moved all the time, as if
  he was constantly expecting to be assaulted. When he took off his helmet,
  as he did when looking through the trench periscope, one could see that his
  hair was not cropped close to the skull in the way that he insisted all the
  others under his command had their hair cut. Brand's hair was of medium
  length and wavy. Somehow, even here in the front line trenches, he always
  managed to find ways of keeping clean. He wore a long waterproof coat that
  he'd got from a British-officer prisoner -Itrenchcoats', the British called
  them - and under it his uniform, complete with Iron Cross medal on his
  pocket, was relatively clean and dry. In his hand Brand carried a riding
  crop with which he liked to point at people or things, prod soldiers who
  needed prodding, or simply slap his thigh reflectively. He slapped his
  thigh with it now.
  'You're both going to work hard today, mv friends. Winter will go back to
  the village and bring a burial party up to number-three post. It's time we
  got rid of those bodies: it stinks down there.' Slap, slap, went the riding
  crop against the skirt of the trenchcoat. He turned to Alex and nodded.
  'Horner' The major wants someone to supervise the detail rebuilding the
  long dugout. It should have been finished two days ago. Hurry them up. I'll
  be along later to see what's happening.'
  Pauli said, 'I'm going back to Divisional Headquarters today, Herr
  Leutnant. My brother is coming. The major gave permission.'
  'You'll do as you're told, Winter. I want those bodies buried tout de
  suite.' Leutnant Brand liked to use French phrases; the officers in his
  cavalry regiment had all done so.
  'My brother is coming from Brussels. The major asked the colonel: it's all
  official.'
  'The war is official, too ' said Brand. He was enjoying himself now. He
  looked at both of them and gave a grim smile, as if inviting them to join
  in the fun. Then he slapped the skirt of his trenchcoat with the riding
  crop. 'Family reunions take place with the commanding officer's permission,
  but even then they are subject to the needs of the military situation. I
  don't know if your brother is a slack, good-for-nothing nincompoop like
  you, Winter. He probably is. But

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 unless he is a complete idiot he'll know that the army comes first. Right,
 Winter? Understand now, Winter?'
  Leutnant Brand was unusually agitated that morning and the reason for this
  became clear when the Vizefeldwebel came to report that the wiring party
  had still not returned. Brand went back to surveying no-man's-land, but
  this time he used the trench periscope. The sky had gone blood-red and it
  was getting lighter every minute. If the wiring party - twelve men - were
  still alive somewhere out in the mud, their chances of surviving through
  the day were slight. The British would shoot up anything unusual out there;
  it was the standard practice for both sides. Anything that might be some
  new sort of weaponry was to be feared, ever since the tanks had appeared
  last year. And today the weather forecast said the wind was from the west,
  a light breeze, which would exactly suit the British if they decided on
  another gas attack. What would happen to the wiring party then? They had
  gone out wearing the bare minimum of equipment - some without helmets, even
  - and it was doubtful there would be one gas mask amongst the lot of them.
  'You two, get going!' said Brand as he remembered that they were still
  waiting his orders. 'And don't let me see you slacking off. Remember what
  I said: you are going to set an example to the men.'
  The Vizefeldwebel watched the exchange with a blank face, but Brand was not
  willing to let the old man stay out of it. As he watched the two officers
  hurrying back along the trench, he smiled to show that he was really a good
  fellow, an ex-Feldwebel who knew that young officers were lazy rogues. But
  the old man didn't respond to the smile.
  Once Pauli and Alex got back to where the communication trenches started,
  Pauli said, 'I so wanted to see my brother. I miss him. It's nearly a year
  and he's come all the way from Brussels.'
  'Just go,' advised Alex. He knew what the meeting meant to his friend:
  Pauli had been talking of little else for the last two weeks. 'The burial
  party don't need you to watch them work. They won't slack on that detail:
  you can be sure of it. They'll work to get that stinking job done as
  quickly as possible.'
  'Thty'll need an officer to collect the identity discs from the bodies,'
  said Pauli doubtfully.
  'Rubbish!' said Alex. 'The NCO will do that. It's Winkel, a good fellow.'
 'Brand will find out.'
  'How will he find out? Will you tell him? Will I tell him? Winkel won't
  make trouble.'

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        'Not so loud, voices carry in the night'

 'He'll go and check on the burial.'
  'Not Brand. He won't go near number three until they are all buried.
  Brand doesn't like that sort of job. That's why he always gives them to
  us to do: it's the worst thing he can think of to do to us.'
 'I promised Peter. . . .'
 'Go! Go! I told you, go.'
  'I'll go as far as the village and talk to the NCO in charge of the
  burial party.'
  'I told you, Winkel is in charge. What are you going to say to him? That
  you're frightened of Brand but you are going to disobey him anyway?'
 'I suppose you're right.'
  'Tell no one. Get the ration truck from the village and go to HQ. Is that
  where you're meeting your brother?'
 'Yes.'
  'Well, get going. It's a long walk. I'll cover for you. I'll have plenty
  of opportunities to get away from the party rebuilding the long dugout.
  It will take them ages yet. You know the way it's flooding. Only an idiot
  like Brand would make them persevere with that job.' He slapped his
  friend on the arm.
  'Thanks,' said Pauli. His fears and doubts began to fade as he hurried
  back along the trench towards Divisional HQ. He decided to consult his
  brother about dealing with Leutnant Brand. Peter would know how to handle
  him; Peter knew everything. The more he thought about it the happier he
  was. The prospect of seeing his brother again filled him wiih joy.

 It was a long way to HQ To start with, it was just over half a kilometre
 along communication trenches before the road was reached, but in the
 drizzling April rain it seemed much farther. At places the trench walls
 had collapsed and there was a constant movement of men coming the other
 wav. Pauli had to ease his way past ration details and had to wait while
 reinforcements came through, so it was nearly an hour before the trenches
 gave way to a sunken road. The road - little note than a track in places
 - was unseen by even the best positioned of the British artillery
 observers, and safe from everything except the odd salvo of twenty-five-
 pounder fire that greeted any dust that was raised at the crossroads. And
 in this weather there was no dust.
  At the crossroads were three military policemen. Two of them were
  squatting in a dugout shelter roofed with galvanized iron. All

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 three were young, not much older than Pauli. Chains at their collars
 supported the small metal gorgets that were the badge of their trade and
 caused their fellow soldiers to call such unpopular men 'chained dogs'. But
 theirs was an unenviable job. They were there not only to check the papers
 of any soldiers leaving the front-line area but also to keep the traffic
 moving through this place in which the British artillerymen were so
 interested. Such a task would produce more regular casualties than even the
 front-line infantry suffered. Pauli felt somewhat better to find that there
 were more dangerous jobs than his own.
  Pauli asked one of the policemen the way. He knew the way, but he still
  felt nervous about deliberately disobeying Brand's order, and talking to
  the military policeman was somehow reassuring. The policeman - a well-fed
  fellow with a pale, pocked face and a straggling moustache -- welcomed a
  chance to talk. He was not insubordinate, nor was he properly deferential
  to the difference in rank. Pauli had found this same man to man attitude
  among some of the men in his regiment, often the older men with families.
  It was usually the mark of a man who has resigned himself to the
  inevitability of death.
  'The general found a conspicuous landmark for himself,' said the military
  policeman. There was a note of derision in his remark. Conspicuous
  landmarks were not eagerly sought after in this wartorn terrain. 'A chateau
  with two pointed towers ... I was on duty there until last month. You'll
  see the ruins of a church as you get into the village. Then there's the
  officers' brothel - you'll see the signs -and then look for the sentries on
  the right. But it's a long way yet.'He didn't ask to see Pauli's papers.
  Pauli wondered if an officer could be shot for such disobedience. With
  Brand quoting the appropriate rules and regulations, it seemed highly
  likely. He wished he hadn't come, but it was too late now.
  'You'll get a ride on the ration wagon,' said the policeman. 'It will be
  coming back this way. Wait in the shelter, if you want to.'
  'I'll keep going,' said Pauli. The other two policemen might not be so
  negligent about his written orders, or rather, his lack of any.
  'I'm not even German,' said the policeman. 'I was born in Vienna.' It was
  hardly necessary to say it: the man spoke with a strong nasal, Viennese
  accent.
 'So was I,' said Pauli.
 'Really? I wish we were there now, don't you?'
 It was at this point that Pauli felt the policeman's familiarity had

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 become insubordinate, but even now he didn't want to upset the fellow.
 'Scion we will be,' ~.aicl Pauli.
  'Yes, Herr Leutnant,' said the policeman. Sensing the young officer's
  resentment, he saltited. The rain made his helmet shiny and ran down his
  face like teaj s. Of course the man didn't believe that Pauli had been born
  in N ienna. Pauli had never had a Viennese accent - although he could mimic
  one with commendable accuracy. He'd grown up to know th(.- voices of
  Berlin, and his voice, although not his manner, was that of the Officer
  Corps.
  By the time he started walking again, it was raining heavily. He passed the
  bloated, rotting corpses of two huge horses. Alongside, a broken wheel
  stood like a grave marker. The stench was overpowering. Pauli buttoned his
  overcoat tight against his neck and took off his steel helmet to wipe The
  sweat from his head and face. To some extent he was sweating with the
  exertion of his walk, but he felt hot with fear, too.
  Only a few hundred yards past the crossroads, he got a ride on the ration
  wagon that was going back to the depot empty. He sat up beside the driver
  - a taciturn man, thank goodness - and watched the rain-washed Zeeland
  horses plod along the ridged track. Their pace was little faster than he'd
  made on foot, but up here on the driver's platform was better than picking
  his way between the submerged potholes and deep mud patches. The landscape
  was dull, misty and monochrome. There was little movement except for
  military traffic on the road and a few peasants who, despite everything,
  clung desperately to their patches of soil.
  It was nearly 9:00 a.m. by the time he reached Divisional HQ, situated - as
  the policeman had promised - in a grand house, There was a large paddock
  and a dozen magnificent cavalry horses grazing there. They looked at Pauli
  as he walked past, then went back to their fodder. Clerks were bivouacked
  in the orchard, and there was a soup kitchen sited in what must once have
  been a herb garden. Pauli didn't want to go to the officers' canteen in
  case he saw someone from his regiment, so he asked the Feldwebel for
  something to eat and got a metal cup of hot dried-pea soup with two
  miserable bits of sausage floating in it. Both soup and sausage were bland
  and almost tasteless, but it warmed him.
  In the grand, marble-paved entrance hall an NCO wearing the smart uniform
  of a Bavarian rifle regiment was seated at a table. Around him was a
  constant traffic of messengers, while noisy young staff officers were
  grouped at the foot of the great staircase. Their

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 voices were not of the sort that Pauli had heard on the parade ground at
 Lichterfelde; they were the shrill, excited voices of wealthy young
 aristocrats. The NCO stared at Pauli. Men straight from the battlefield were
 seldom seen this far behind the lines, and the NCO clerk - who'd not been to
 the trenches - had never before seen an officer so dirty.
  After his inquiries Pauli went up the magnificent staircase and found Peter
  in an upstairs room talking to an elegant-looking captain. The captain was
  about forty years old and wore the badges of a heavy, cavalry regiment. His
  striped armband marked him as a staff officerfrom Corps HQ. Peter and the
  captain were laughing together as Pauli went into the office and saluted.
  Peter! This was the moment he'd risked so much for. This was the meeting
  he'd waited for so impatiently. Peter! He wanted to throw his arins around
  his beloved brother and hug him, but that wasn't something he could do in
  the presence of a stranger. So he stood anxiously smiling at Peter.
  'So this is the brother?' said the captain, and both men laughed again.
  Pauli envied the way his elder brother could make friends so easily. Peter
  was able to bridge the gap that rank and age created. Peter could even
  laugh and joke with his father, whereas Pauli was always treated Like a
  baby, both by family and by strangers. Whenever Pauli got away with some
  misdeed or other, it was always by means of his charm, but Peter talked to
  other men as an equal, and that was what Pauli so admired. This relaxed and
  sophisticated elder brother of his would never have endured the bullying of
  Leutnant Brand; he would have found some way of dealing with him. But God
  only knows how.
  Peter stood up and clasped Pauli's offered hand. 'Pauli,' he said, 'Pauh.'
  Without taking his eyes from his brother for more than a moment, Pauli sat
  down on a hard wooden chair. It always seemed strange to sit on a proper
  chair after a long spell in the trenches.
  'I'll leave you together,' said the staff officer. 'There's not much doing
  over the Easter weekend. Most of the staff are probably in Brussels on
  leave.'
  The friendlv staff officer gave Peter and Pauli the use of the little
  office room and even sent a soldier to serve them coffee and schnapps.
  'You're in a terrible state,' said Peter when they were alone together. He
  was staring at his younger brother's dark-ringed eyes

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 and shaved head and at his rain-drenched greatcoat and mud-caked boots. As
 Pauli loosened his collar, he caught sight of a dirty undervest, too.
 'Haven't you had time to change into a clean uniform?' It was the voice (if
 the grown-up brother admonishing the baby about his gravy-stained bib, but
 Pauli didn't allow the condescension to spoil things.
  For a moment Pauli didn't reply. He knew, of course, that the civilians
  didn't realize that the front line was no more than a filthy ditch from
  which the sound of bronchial coughing could be heard across no-man's-land,
  and where pneumonia was as deadly as enemy bullets and shells. But that his
  brother should think it was someplace where clean uniforms and pressed
  linen were available shocked him. 'There was no time,' said Pauli. He
  wished he could take Peter to the trenches and show him what it was like.
  He'd never understand otherwise. No one could visualize it. It was useless
  to explain.
  'It's an officer's first task to set an example,' said Peter primly.
  'Surely they taught you that at cadet school.' Oh, God, how like Leutnant
  Brand he sounded, thought Pauli. But Peter smiled suddenly and the mood
  changed. 'You've grown so big, Pauli. So big across the shoulders . . .'Was
  that Peter's polite way of saying that Pauli had not grown much tallei?
  Pauli had always wanted to be as tall as his brother, ever since he could
  remember, but now he knew he would never be tall, slim, and elegant: he'd
  always be short, thickset, broad, and clumsy.
  'You're promoted,' said Pauli. Perhaps his elder brother's shiny new gold
  ring on that so very clean, neatly pressed naval uniform had gone to his
  head.
  'Oberieutnants are little more than office boys in Brussels, where I work,'
  said Peter. But, in a gesture that belied his modesty, he brushed his
  sleeve self-consciously as he spoke.
  'You're looking well, Pvter.' He made no mention of his elder brother's
  mutilated hand and tried not to look at it. Peter's injury frightened him
  in some way that the firing line did not. Peter was family: an injury to
  him injured Pauli.
  'There's no reason why I shouldn't be back on flying duties. As an
  Oberleutnant with my experience, I'd probably get command of one of the new
  high altitude zt-ppelins. I even tried for the High Seas Fleet. But the
  damned medical board won't clear me. Sometimes I wonder whether Father
  ha!~n't found some way of keeping me from active duty.'
 'There's no doubt he'd try if he got the chance,' said Pauli. They

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 both knew that their father would have done anything to keep Pauli from the
 Western Front, and for Pauli his efforts had obviously failed.
  'Now that the army have stopped using airships, Father probably has less
  influence with them. But the navy still listen to him.'
  'When did you last see him?' asked Pauli. He scratched himself. Fleas were
  a fact of life in the trenches - and lice, too - but Pauli noticed his
  brother's look of horror as he realized he was lousy.
  'Christmas. I got seven days' leave. Everyone hoped that you'd come home
  too.'
  'Training. I got a twenty-four-hour pass for Christmas. No one was
  permitted to leave the barracks. Even the colonel stayed.'
 'The infantry are winning the war,' said Peter.
  'We're not winning the war,' said Pauli. 'We're being shot at, and we're
  shooting back. We are not winning the war. We will win it, of course - no
  one doubts that - but for the time being it's a sort of stalemate. Neither
  side advances more than a few metres, and the English leave battalions of
  dead on the barbed wire.'
 'At least the Russians are kaputt,' said Peter.
 'We don't get much news where we are.'
  'It started in March; there were food riots in Petrograd, and when the
  troops were called out they shot their officers and joined the mob.'
 'My God!'
 'You didn't hear?'
  'Only that the Tsar abdicated and a provisional government was formed. The
  troops joined in? It's true?'
  'Including the Imperial Guard. Some say it started in the Imperial Guard
  but even in Brussels it's difficult to get reliable news. Each newspaper
  story contradicts the one before. A fellow I know on the Supreme Command at
  Spa told me the little I know.'
 'What will happen now?'
  'The Russians can't go on fighting much longer. In Berlin there are rumours
  that the Kaiser has arranged for Marxist revolutionaries to be given safe
  passage across Germany to return home to Russia.'
 'The Kaiser would allow such a thing? Never!'
  'Th,! revolutionaries have always been opposed to the war - the world
  brotherhood of man, and so on. So if they took power in Petrograd, they
  would immediately order a cease-fire. If we have no enemyto fight in the
  East, all our divisions would be turned to face the French and the British.
  The war could end within the month.'

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       'Not so loud, voices carry in the nighe

 'It sounds too good to be true.'
  Peter nodded his agreement and said, 'What will you do when it ends,
  Pauli? Will you stay in the army?'
  'What else am I fit for? I have no head for banking or business and even
  if I did have, I'm not sure that I'd get along well enough with Father
  to be working alongside him every day. What about you?'
  'No more piano playing.' He held up his gloved hand. 'I'll go to college.
  If Father wants me to study law, I'll do it. Then, if I don't get along
  with him, I can go into a law practice somewhere.'
 'Tell me about dear Mama.... It's such a long time.'
  'She still has the awful American accent, but her German is much better
  now. She found people would be rude to her, thinking she was British. It
  made her improve her German in a way that nothing else ever did.'
 'Rude to Mama? Who would be rude to her?'
 'People standing in the food lines.'
 'Mama standing in the food lines?'
  'Mother has changed, Pauli. Just as the Jews have become so determined
  to prove their patriotism, so Mama and other foreignborn Germans feel
  that they must outdo everyone else in the struggle to win the war. She
  helps the wounded soldiers to write letters home, she rolls bandages, and
  even makes speeches at War Loans rallies.'
 'But she was so sick.'
  'Then the war has cured her sickness. When you go back to Berlin, you
  will not recognize her, Pauli.'
 'And what of Father?'
 'Work, work, work. Did you hear that Hauser joined the army?'
  'Old Hauser? Father's valet? But he must be at least forty years old.'
  'Thirty-eight years old. I'm surprised they took him, but he shaved off'
  that awful beard and gave a false age to the r.:cruiting officer. He's
  now a driving instructor at a transport school in Frankfurt. And from
  what I hear from Father, he's lording it with stories about how he used
  to drive Papa's old Itala.'
 'How does Father manage without him?'
 'It's amazing. Father drives himself almost everywhere.'
 'And women?'
  His brother hesitated. It was a taboo subject, or had been until now. 'He
  goes to Vienna a great deal,' said Peter finally.
 'I thought that was finished.'
 'So didpoor Mama, I think.'

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  'I wish Father could see how ridiculous it makes him look,' said Pauli. He
  loved his father and respected him to the point of reverence, but now he'd
  reached the age at which he judged him, too.
  'Does it make hiiin look ridiculous? Most of his friends seem to admire and
  envy him. We are the only ones who think him ridiculous, and that's just
  because we feel sorry for Mama.'
 'Perhaps she would have been happier with the Englishman.'
 'Which Englishman?'
  'Surely you guessed that the Englishman, Piper, wanted her to go away with
  him.'
 'Mama?'
  'Mama had a love aflair with the Englishman. At Traverniinde, when we lost
  the Valhalla.'
 'Are you crazy, Pauli?'
  'It took me a long time to understand what had happened between them. But
  now I look back at it, I can see how desperately unhappy she was for years
  afterwards.'
 'The Englishman? The spy?'
 'He was no spy. That was just Papa's way of attacking him.'
 'Are you saying that Mama had a love affair with the Englishman
  and that Papa knew about it?'
  'I found his wristwatch under Mama's bed There, he'd said
 it. A thousand times it had been on the tip of Pauli's tongue to reveal
 the secret, but now he'd said it. And now he regretted it.
 Peter closed his eyes. 'It's incredible,' he said at last.
  'Incredible or not, it's true. I think Mama was afraid I would blurt out
  something that would betray her secret.'
 'But you never did?'
  'I didn't understand the significance of finding the watch there until
  years later. But then, when Mama took the chloroform in the summer Of 1914,
  and Frau Wisliceny came round to look after her ... That night, when I went
  in to kiss Papa good night, I noticed that he was piecing together torn
  fragments of a letter. It must have been a letter to Mama from the
  Englishman.'
 'I wish you hadn't told me,' said Peter. 'I feel besmirched by iC
  'Don't be absurd,'said Pauli. 'Does Mama have no right to be with someone
  who loves her?'
 'She has Father.'
  'And Father has half a dozen other women. He has no real, deep love for
  Mama. Sometimes I think he might have married her only for the Rensselaer
  money.'

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        'Not so loud, voices carry in the night'

  Peter was affronted. He could hardly believe that Pauli had changed so
  much. Pauli had always been in awe of father. 'If you were not my brother
  I'd call you out for saying that.'
  'A duel?' Pauli laughed. 'You think I'd care about losing my life in a
  duel? Where I am, I see men maimed and dying every day. I stood next to a
  sentry last week while a shell splinter trepanned him. His brains spattered
  into my face. You complain about my dirty uniform. Do you know what the
  stains on my jacket are? Blood; the blood of boys who forget to lower their
  head at the right time, or make too much noise mending the wire at night.
  Would you like to know about the stains on my trousers, Peter? Faeces! I
  shit myself with fear every time I hear the whistle of a mortar bomb or
  shell, or hear at night the movement of a few rats, which might in reality
  be a British raiding party coming to bury a trench knife in my throat. It's
  quick and quiet, the throat. you see. You learn how to cut a man's throat
  while holding a hand very tightly over his mouth so that he doesn't
  scream.'
  'You did this, Pauli?' His elder brother's eyes were wide and his face had
  gone pale. 'Killed with a knife?'
  'Half a dozen times. I have a superior officer - a contemptible cad -who
  thinks young Lichterfelde graduates like me should be exposed to maximum
  danger. He tells us that. He also told me that I mustn't come here today.
  I suppose i hat shocks you, too. I came here today -in this dirty uniform
  of which you so disapprove - having defied the lawful orders of a superior
  officer. And I shall do it again whenever it suits me.'
 'You are insane, Pauli.'
  'No, I'm not insane, but iometimes I think His Majesty must be insane to
  continue with this mad war.'
  'Pauli, you must see a doctor. You are insane.' Peter looked round
  fearfully, astounded to hear such treasonable talk from his young brother.
  'Perhaps you're right. Then come to the front line with me, Peter, and
  perhaps you'll become insane, too. But I promise that you'll lose all fears
  ofdeath, disgrace or anything else that fate has waiting for us.' Pauli
  reached forward to take the glass of schnapps that the captain had. sent to
  them, and he downed it in one swallow.
  When Peter spoke again, his voice was soft and low, his tone more
  concifiatory. 'Whatever may be the truth of it, Pauli, I beg you, for your
  own sake and for thai of' the family, to leave such thoughts unspoken.lt
  can be very dangerous. People might even think you are

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 mixed up with these crackpot radical groups who are so outspoken against the
 war.'
  'After this war I want things to be different, very different, but I'm not
  a Spartacist, if that's what you mean.'
  'I know you're not. That man Liebknecht is a traitor and a swine. It's a
  good thing he',,, gone to prison. But now the Tsar's been deposed, everyone
  who says anything against the war is lumped together with the
  revolutionaries. In the North Sea Fleet we have already had some serious
  insubordination, bordering on mutiny. The admiral jumped on it vigorously,
  I'm glad to say. I was sent to Wilhelmshaven with the legal team. Do you
  know who I saw there? Fritz Esser.'
  'Fritz? That rogue.' Pauli laughed. 'Was he the ringleader? With all his
  hero-worshipping talk about his precious Karl Liebknecht, I wonder how the
  navy ever accepted him.'
  'If he was the ringleader he was too cunning to be caught. He's found
  himself some soft job in the supply branch and is already a petty officer.'
 'A petty officer. I thought he was illiterate.'
  'Esser? Of course not, Pauli. Can't you remember all those books and
  pamphlets he'd read about the coming revolution?'
 'Yes, you're right.'
 'You thought the world of him.'
 'We both did,' said Pauli, 'but we laughed at him too.'
  'I'm not laughing now, Pauli. Esser and his ilk are dangerous men. Make no
  mistake, Germany has many such uneducated, treacherous fools, who will sell
  out their country if they get the chance.'
 'Sell out their country? To what?'
  'I clon't know ... they don't know, either ... some fantasy about a world
  revolution and the brotherhood of mankind. They want power, Pauli. I saw
  these people at close hand when we were preparing the court-martial
  evidence in Wilhelmshaven. Many of them were simple men - stokers mostly --
  but among them were some trained agitators, well equipped to argue their
  crackpot political theory, with lawyers, or anyone else.'
 'It's all finished now?'
  Peter glanced round nervously. 'No, it's not finished, I'm afraid. We put
  a few troublemakers behind bars, but there are too many Essers at large.
  Back home, civilians are working regular twelvehour days and food is very
  short, thanks to the British naval blockade. So many tired and hungry
  workers provide opportunities

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 for rabble-rousers. Unless conditions improve soon, I'm afraid we'll see
 more and more trouble from servicemen and civilians.'
 'I've never heard anything of this before, Peter.'
 'I didn't intend to talk about it.'
 'We don't hear anything at the front.'
  'This revolution in Russia will give Liebknecht and the Rosa Luxemburg
  woman encouragement to renew their efforts. The radicals will bide their
  time, and when they make their bid for power they'll be ready to spill
  blood. Not only their own blood, either!'
  The two of them sat for several minutes, looking at each other and
  drinking the delicious coffee that was available to these lucky men who
  fought their war behind desks. Then there were loud voices in the
  corridor, the sort of anxious exchanges seldom heard in these quiet
  corridors. Suddenly the door opened and the staff captain came in,
  looking agitated. With no more than a nod to the two officers, he grabbed
  papers from a tray on his desk and retrieved others from the top of a
  cabinet. 'The Americans have declared war,' he said over his shoulder
  ashe sorted through his papers.
  'Are you sure?' asked Peter. It was impossible to take in. America was
  thousands of miles away, and their army was negligible. Even if their
  army was enlarged, the U boats would make sure the Americans never got
  to Europe.
  'The American Congress ratified it yesterday. What a thing to happen at
  Eastertime!' He threw papers into a file. 'Do you realize what it means?'
  'Will they send armies to Europe?' said Pauli. Already they were
  stretched to the limit to hold the front.
  The captain said, 'We must disengage from the Russians and crush the
  French with one quick, massive offensive before the Americans arrive.'
  It sounded like something he'd been told.
 'Is such a thing possible?' said Peter.
  'We will discover in good time,' said the captain. He dropped a handful
  of papers against the desktop to get them straightened. 'If we haven't
  won the war by C hristmas, it will be the end of the Fatherland. The end
  of everything we're fighting for.' Peter looked at the staff officer and
  was disturbed by his demeanour. Perhaps the Americans would make a
  difference. There were so many of them, and their resources were
  limitless.
  As the captain went out through the door, Pauli could see, at the top of
  the grand staircase, the general who commanded the division and two
  aides. They were magnificently attired: swords, Pickel-
  
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 hauben, gleaming boots, and chestfuls of orders and decorations. He got only
 the briefest glimpse of the three men, but all his fife Pauli remembered the
 scene in every small detail, even the way in which the general was holding
 his Turkish cigarette in a jade holder.
  The two brothers had not resumed their conversation when they heard the
  distant explosion of an enemy shell. The rumble of gunfire had been a
  background to their talk, but this one was nearer, about three miles away.
  They went to the window in time to see the plume of brown smoke that marked
  its fall. By that time another shellburst shook the glass. The iecond round
  landed only slightly closer.
 Peter said, 'It's the first time I've been on the receiving end of it.'
  'A heavy-calibre gun,' said Pauli. 'Somewhere up there a couple of men in
  an observation plane are trying to locate us. I don't know why they find it
  so difficult: a big mansion like this with two big spires.'
  'It's not so easy when you are up there,' said Peter. 'In this sort of poor
  light, through the overcast, it all looks grey. In evening or morning
  sunlight the shadows make it easier.'
  'Then why do they always come over in such bad weather?' said Pauli.
  Peter gave a grim smile. It seemed so safe and simple to those who stayed
  on the ground. 'The poor devils want to disappear into the clouds if our
  fighters get near them or the anti-aircraft fire does.' As he said it,
  small black puffs of flak appeared in the sky to the south, but they could
  see no sign of the artillery-spotting plane.
  'The fliers won't hang around long,' said Pauli. 'And these longrange guns
  can fire only a few rounds at a time. Then the barrels are worn out. War is
  a damned expensive business, as the taxpayers are discovering.'
  'When we win, the French will pay reparations, as they did last time.'
 'Ali! When we win,' said Pauli.
  They stood in silence, looking at the shattered landscape. The grounds of
  the chiteau had been beautifully cultivated for a couple of hundred years,
  but now the whole place had been ravaged by the soldiers. The orchard was
  no more than tree stumps, the lawn a camp, and everywhere a quagmire.
  Farther away, the woodland had been scavenged for firewood through three
  winters of war; and the country roads, built for carts and carriages, were
  churned by endless divisional horse-drawn traffic and the occasional staff
  car and truck.
  'Was it terrible?' asked Pauli, still staring out the window. 'The zeppelin
  flights, the raids over England, and the crash: was it terrible?'

                142
        'Not so loud, voices cany in the night'

  'The raids were all right. I didn't realize what danger we were in until,
  on the final one, I saw an airship bum in the sky.' Peter's voice was
  different now: the voice Pauli remembered from when they'd exchanged
  confidences in the darkness of the nursery. 'I was so frightened, Pauli,
  that my hands were shaking. She was gone.... The whole airship was gone in
  a few seconds. So many friends
 'And you crashed.'
  'That wasn't so bad but they operated on my hand three times and I was
  convinced that I would relive my fears ... scream or reveal my cowardice
  under the anaestlietic.'
 'And did you?'
 'God knows.'
 'Papa told me that most of your crew were killed.'
  'We were hit over the English coast - gunfire - the control gondola was
  damaged and we lost some of the officers. We limped back across the North,
  Sea, sinking lowei all the time. I thought we'd get home in one piece, but
  it was not to be. Most of the casualties came when we hit the trees. The
  observation officer, an elderly chap named Hildmann -- the staff captain
  just now put me in mind of him - was killed. While he was alive I didn't
  ever give Hildmann a thought, but after he was dead I realized how much I
  owed to him. He'd looked after me right through all the training flights
  and on our first war missions over England. After a man is dead you can't
  say thank you.'
 'And Hermig was with you?'
 'He survived, the insolent little swine.'
 'And he's married Lisl Wisliceny, I hear.'
  'Yes, a flashy ceremony - Frau Wisliceny arranged it all, of course - and
  a big reception in the Adlon afterwards.'
 'Mama wrote me a letter.'
  'Mama had to go: Frau Wisliceny is her best friend. She's a fine woman.
  Yes, Mama went, but Papa was in Friedrichshafen with the airship people.'
  Peter said it with satisfaction. He was pleased that his father had found
  a reason to stay away from the wedding of the hateful Hennig.
 'Did you want to marry her?'
  'Lisl? Yes, once I did. Or at least I thought I did. But then, as I
  realized the way in which she was playing a game with me and Hennig -
  playing us off one against the other - I didn't love her any more.'
 'They're all pretty girls, the Wislicenys.'
 'I was close to Inge once         He turned suddenly. 'By God! I've

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 just thought of something. If America has declared war, Mama is an enemy
 alien. They might make us resign our commissions, Pauli.'
  'You're a selfish pig, Peter. Instead of worrying about your commission you
  should be worrying about poor Mama. She must be feelingy terrible about it.
  Let's pray she'll not be sent to an internment camp like the English
  civilians have been.'
  'Yes, of course, you're right. I should have been thinking of her. But it
  will affect us, too, Pauli. It could make things very difficult for both of
  us.'
  A light tap came and the office door opened immediately. A man stepped
  inside, a formidable figure, a captain, fortyish, with hard grey e, es and
  a mouth I ike a rat trap. He nodded to Peter and without any preliminaries
  asked Pauli for his papers. Pauli knew it was the end for him as soon as he
  saw the metal gorget at his neck. A Feldgendarmerie officer complete with
  Bavarian-style shako, and sword hung with ornamental knot. 'You are absent
  without leave, Leutnant Winter. You have absented yourself from your post
  while on active service. From the front line ... It's a death-penalty
  offence. I suppose you know that?' A slight Bavarian accent: it wasn't the
  voice or the manner of a career soldier, but there was that touch of
  informality that professional policemen use to make apprehended men
  amenable. Pauli guessed that he'd once been a senior police officer in
  Munich or some such town.
  Pauli didn't reply. He knew what was expected of a Prussian officer. He
  stood rigidly at attention, as he'd stood for so many hours on the parade
  ground at Lichterfelde. He'd known, deep down, that it was going to happen,
  and now it had happened. His guts were churning, but in some ways it was a
  relief. Now all he had to do was face his punishment. He'd always been
  better able to face the consequences than to worry about them.
  He had plenty of time to think about what he'd done. He was held for two
  nights in the cells at Divisional HQ before facing his courtmartial. But
  for his colonel, Pauli would probably have faced a firing squad. It was the
  colonel - prematurely aged from sending so many youngsters into battle -
  who gave such a glowing account of Pauli's bravery and devotion to duty. It
  was the colonel who put such emphasis on Pauli's extreme youth, and it was
  the colonel who arranged that Leutnant Brand did not appear in person.
  But Brand's written deposition was carefully worded. He must have spent
  many hours upon the document, and he covered every eventuality, even to the
  extent of finding the military policeman with whom Pauli had spoken at the
  crossroads.

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 The verdict was inescapable.
  The sentence came like a slap in the face, but Pauli didn't flinch. Six
  months with a Punishmvnt Battalion. Everyone knew that a spell with a
  Punishment Battalion was intended as a deferred death sentence. Such units
  were used only where the fighting was most bitter and the personnel were
  considered expendable. But the one consolation was that his Field Post
  Office address didn't reveal what had happened, so his parents believed he
  was simply transferred to another regular infantry regiment.
  And thus it was that Pauli endured the worst of the fighting of that year,
  so that afterwards some men did not believe that he could be a veteran of
  so many infamous fields of battle. But he did not survive the year
  unharmed. Though his skin was intact, his soul was hardened -as hard as
  Krupp steel,'he sometimes claimed after a few drinks. He had learned to
  stiffer without complaint, to hurt without whimpering, and to kill without
  emotion.
  And yet, paradoxically, there were aspects of him that stayed unchanged.
  Outwardly he remained genial, careless, clumsy Pauli. He was too anxious to
  please ever to become really sophisticated. And now more than ever he
  relished the simple pleasures of life. Unlike his brother, Peter - who was
  austere, cultivated and brimful of ambition - Pauli served his sentence and
  went back to active duty asking no triore than to sit down now and again to
  a big bowl of beef stew, smoke twenty cigarettes a day and have an extra
  half-hour in bed on Sunday morning.

 145
           1918
          'The zwr is won, isn't it?'

 Leutnant Pauli Winter had never been in no-man's-land like this before. He'd
 never known it in the full foggy raw light of morning. Like all the other
 fr0rit-line infantry, he'd come here only at night, on patrols to mend the
 great jungle of rusty barbed wire, which was constantly damaged by shell and
 mortar fire, or to raid the enemy trenches. Always under cover of darkness.
  Until now his world had consisted only of narrow trenches and dark dugouts.
  The sky, seasonally grey, azure, or black with rain clouds, had been only
  a narrow slot framed by the muddy edges of the trench parapet. No one in
  his right mind raised his head above the parapet to stare across at where
  the unseen English inhabited their own subterranean dominion.
  It was impossible to remember al I the stories he'd heard about no-
  man's-land. There wet e stories about ficrce animals that were said to live
  out here, skulking in their warrens and emerging by night to feast on the
  dead and dying. And certainly some of the noises they'd all heard
  encouraged the belief. Other soldiers' stories said there were men living
  out here in this great churned-up rubbish tip. Deserters of all
  nationalities were said to have formed a community, a bandit gang, who
  lived deep in the ground., stole money, watches and personal possessions
  from the bodies that littered the ground, and fed upon stores p1lindered
  from both sides of the line. It was all nonsense, if course, but hugging
  the ground out here, the barrage whistling overhead, ihe earth stinking of
  cordite, facces and decomposing flesh, made such yarns seem only too
  likely.
  But today was March 2 1, 19 18, the start of the great attack that was
  going to break the British-held front line and end the war with a victory
  for the Kaiser. Pauli and two of his company - his runner and his youthful
  sergeant major - were crouched in a shell crater about a hundred metres in
  front of the German lines. The rest of his

                146
           'The war is won, isn't it?'

 company were similarly hidden nearby, and so were other 'Storm companies'
 crouching unseen in no-man's-land all along the front line.
  The three men had their hands clamped over the sides of their heads to
  protect their eardrums against the deafening roar of the German guns. The
  preparatory bombardment had been going on for nearly five hours. Now it
  was nine-forty and the guns would stop, and in the pearly light Pauli
  would lead his men into the attack.
  'Nothing could have lived through that,' shouted Feldwebel Lothar Koch
  as the artillery fire lessened. Koch was young - he'd given a false age
  to get into the army - a pimply fellow with a square protruding jaw that
  moved as he chewed on a plug of tobacco. Partly due to the immense pride
  his promotion had given him, he was still optimistic about the outcome
  of the war. Deep down in his heart, young Koch entertained the hope of
  being commissioned, or at least becoming a noncommissioned deputy officer
  by the time he took part in the promised victory parade through conquered
  Paris. He looked at the other two men with his mournful eyes. They both
  stared back at him blankly. 'Nothing could have lived through that,'
  repeated Koch.
  Pauli touched the silk stockings under his collar: black, a pair of them
  knotted to form a long scarf that wound around his neck five times. It
  prevented the collar of his uniform from chafing his neck, and also
  reminded him of a glorious few hours in Brussels with a girl he'd met in
  church! He looked at his pocket watch - wristwatches did not survive in
  these conditions - and up at the heavy fog. Thank God for it. He dragged
  himself to his feet. His uniform was caked with mud -I his canvas bag of
  stick grenades felt heavier than ever. 'Bugler!' he shouted and from a
  muddy hillock nearby the bugler slowly pushed up through a chrysalis of
  heavy mud. 'Sound the advance.'
  On every side German'storm troops, emerged from the incredible collection
  of broken debris that littered the ground. They met with the clattering
  sound of a British Lewis gun and some intermittent rifle fire from
  Tommies who had not been rendered useless by the artillery's systematic
  destruction of the British front line trenches. But the fog was too thick
  for the British to see what was happening, and the fire that greeted
  their advance was aimed into the white mist, so that only a few unlucky
  Germans screamed and fell. Pauli heard calls for stretcherbearers and a
  bugle sounding the advance.
  'Is the company advancing?' Pauli asked the young Feldwebel. There was
  mud in his mouth and he spat it out and wiped his face

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 with a dirty lace handkerchief. Her handkerchief! Her name was Monike. She
 spoke the Belgian sort of Plattdeutsch that he could understand. A tall,
 slim, shy creature with wonderful green-grey eyes, heart-shaped face, and
 all the mysterious promises of a first love. She'd taken him home and given
 him chicken soup that her mother had left on the stove for her. Thick
 chicken soup with beans and carrots. He loved Monike. He thought of her
 every day. And wrote her long letters, every one of which he carefully tore
 up.
  'Yes, Herr Leumant. The company is advancing.' Koch could see through the
  fog no better than his company commander, but they both knew that the men
  would do as they were ordered. They were Germans, and their rcadiness to
  obey instructions was a measure of their civilization, and their tragedy.
  Pauli kept running over the uneven ground. With the swirling white fog
  wrapped round him, he stumbled into pot holes and tripped over the roots of
  trees, sandbags, corpses, balks of ancient timbers, and large sheets of
  corrugated iron that, together with untold other stuff, littered this old
  battlefield. The intelligence reports said no-man's-land was two hundred
  metres wide at this place, but now it seemed much wider.
  Sergeant Major Koch, a thin, wiry figure, was just a few paces ahead of
  him: hurrying as best he could, ungainly and uncertain about the going. His
  machine gun was slung over his shoulder, and in his hands he held a huge
  set of heavy-duty wire cutters. Bullets zinged past but the German
  bombardment was now no more than a few desultory bangs and crashes far in
  the enemy's rear areas. How soon before the British artillery and mortars
  began to lob their explosives into no-man's-land? Surely they must have
  guessed that the five-hour bombardment was a prelude to an infantry
  assault. Or were the British pulling their howitzers and field artillery
  back into safer, rear areas. Such defeatism was too much to hope for. Or
  was it.
  Now Koch had started cutting through the wire. The artillery had done their
  job well; endless fields of wire - so carefully tended by the nightpatrols
  from both sides - were no", a shambles. Koch found the weakest parts of
  this metallic thicket and cut a path just wide enough for the infantry to
  follow through. The wire sprang back with a loud noise like a peal of
  bells. At night such carelessness would have brought a burst of fire and
  almost certain death, but now speed was all that mattered. The stolid Koch,
  crouched low, went chopping his way through the undergrowth of rusty
  tendrils.
  Behind Pauli the bugler was sounding 'close up!' the prearranged call to
  indicate the way through the defences.

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 'Koch! Get back, damn you.'
  Once through the last of the wire, Pauli pushed ahead of his sergeant
  major. In the storm companies it was a matter of pride that the company
  commander led his men into battle. More bullets came now: closer, for
  they no longer zinged but cracked like a ringmaster's whip. Chest-high.
  Alongside him, two men bowed low to die, heads down, snorting and
  gurgling briefly as the blood flooded into their lungs. He ran on,
  stumbled and touched the silk stockings - or, rather, made a gesture in
  the direction of his throat - Monike had said that she would be his good
  luck. It was a childish thing to say, for she was a child, and he
  believed it, because, for all his brutal experiences, he too was little
  more than a child. She hadn't given him the stockings, of course. She was
  not that sort of girl. He'd taken them from the laundry basket in her
  bedroom.
  More firing of rifles and machine guns. Over to the left - and very close
  - there came the sound of a heavy Vickers gun, stertorous, like a
  wheezing generator. But it was too late now to worry about bullets. Pauli
  found. himself on the brink - the parapet - of the foremost enemy
  trenchline. He jumped. It was almost three metres deep. Burdened as he
  was with bombs and machine pistol, his weight took him right through the
  damp duckboards that formed the floor of the trench. The rotten wood
  snapped with a loud noise, and Pauli went deep into mud, io that he had
  to bend and extricate his boots from the broken slats. Thank God this
  section of the trench was unmanned.
  He ran along the trench, splashing his way through the stagnant, watery
  mud. God! Did the British stand in this shit night and day. He came to
  a surprised looking British soldier. Pauli pulled the trigger of his
  pistol and the youngster was punched backwards by the force of the
  bullets. He sank down without any change in the expression upon his
  pinched, pale face.
  Pauli ran on, along the communications trench and then to a junction of
  the support trench. Here the conditions were even worse: he was
  ankle-deep in stinking mud. rhe trenches were unmanned here. Had the
  British gone over the top to face the attackers, or fled? A sign marked
  the rear trench 'Pall Mall', and there were other painted wooden signs
  pointing the way to Company HQ and a field dressing post.
  The trench lines zigzagged to minimize the effects of blast. At the next
  turn half a dozen khaki- clad soldiers were bunched in the corner of the
  entrance to a dugout. They were wide-eyed with fear. Two of

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 them werc sitting or~ the fire step hugging themselves. Their uniforms were
 blackened with rain, and the heavy wet cloth hung on them like a dead
 weight. Pauli swung aside. From behind him Koch fired a burst from his MP
 18, and the brown-coated soldiers stiffened and grew taller before toppling
 full-length like lead toys.
  As they -an forward again, a British officer put his head out of his
  dugou.t immediately ahead of them and shouted loudly. He was a middle-aged
  fellow with a neat moustache. He looked not unlike Pauli's father.
  Pauli stopped, unde(,ided what to do, but Koch hit the officer with the
  butt of his gun and then threw two stick grenades down through the dark
  entrance and raced on. There was a tremendous bang and muffled screaming.
  Pauli looked back. He saw the British officer as the blast caught him. The
  wretched man was blown to pieces in a pink cloud of blood. The mangled
  body, its khaki sleeve and insignia intact,, hit the sides of the trench.
  Round the upper part of the arm was a mud-stained white armband with a red
  cross on it. The dugout was of'course a temporary casualty station. Too
  late now.
  Aheaa of them the sound of firing and, emerging from the white fog, more
  men. 'Wer da?' He climbed up one of the trench ladders and ran along the
  edge of the parapet.
  'Don't shoot! Don't shood' They were Germans from the next company. 'Wer
  da?' More challenges as grey-uniformed men appeared like wraiths in the
  dispersing fog. Pauli recognized the faces of some of them. rhe bugler
  sounded the close-up signal again. Pauli saw their officer a captain named
  Graf, a thin, irritable man with a red nose, his heavy steel helmet
  grotesquely large for his small ferret face.
 'Keep going, Winter. We've got them on the run.'
  'ja, Herr Hauptmajin.' He turned and shouted to the rest of his men to
  hurry. The Punishment Battalion had changed Pauli. At one time he would
  have been terrified by a man like Hauptmann Graf. Now it took a great deal
  more to frighten him.
  There was a loud roar behind him, and the narrow trench was suddenly lit by
  a brilliant orange glow. Pauli turned to see the great balloons of ignited
  fuel ripping a hole through the white fog. The flame throwers were
  syitematically burning out the dugouts all along the suppon trench. Poor
  devils - even a bayonet in the guts is better than that.
  They hurried on; th( earth was firmer behind the support trenches and the
  fog much thimied. Crossing the sunken road that the British

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 had used for their supplies and reinforcements, the Germans chased across
 the open ground. No one was firing at them now. To the left was a forest of
 tree stumps, the trunks short, broken, and bared white like pencil stubs. To
 the front of them the ruins of a village, with only waist-high Aalls
 remaining. The church had been devoured by the war: its relics and valuables
 stolen, its doors and pews chopped into firewood, the roof collapsed, its
 lead improvised into drains for waterlogged trenchlines, and its tower
 reduced to rubble by artillery fire to deprive the British of an observation
 post.
  Behind the village were twenty or thirty brown-clad soldiers, British
  service troops without rifles, an officer wearing the badges of the Royal
  Engineers, and two men carrying wooden crates. At the first sign of the
  Germans they raised their hands in the air. The Germans, in too much of it
  hurry even to rob them, pointed back the way they'd come. Reluctantly the
  British shambled off to the east, walking slowly, in the hope that a
  counterattack would free them before they got to the German rear.
  In the ruined village was a mobile bath unit. It had been abandoned hastily
  by men who'd left behind parts of their uniforms, towels, webbing and even
  a rack of Lee-Enfield rifles. But even the sight of clean hot water and the
  wonderful fragrance of disinfectant and soap did not halt the advancing
  Germans.
  They pressed on. Pauli was fit and strong, but the pace was wearing. He
  sniffed the air. Was it gas? And if so what type? Not mustard gas anyway.
  That was the one most to be feared, but the plan of attack said that the
  artillery would only put mustard into British rear areas, into which the
  Germans would not advance. So it couldn't be mustard. Could it? He stopped
  and bent down to prod loose a clod of earth and sniff at it. Foolhardy, but
  it was what was expected of men in the storm companies. He started running
  again and swung his gas mask round to the front of his belt as he ran. Soon
  they slowed: the pace was too demanding even for young, fit bodies, and
  there was no sign of i he enemy.
  Walking now. The girl came back to his mind. The house was empty, she said,
  her parents visiting her grandmother. They'd kissed and ended up in bed.
  First time for Pauli and first time for the girl. What a fiasco. All hi,,
  sexual fantasies shattered by two minutes in bed. The girl had cried. I'm
  still a virgin, she'd said. Then, her mood changing. she'd laughed. Well,
  it wasn't funny for him. He'd fled from the house with only the stockings
  around which to weave stories for his fellow soldiers. But by the time he'd
  got back to his

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 company, he had no wish to mention her to anyone. There was no one to whom
 he could confide his story. He was in love; he wanted her too much to talk
 about her. What a fool he'd been. If only he'd let the relationship develop
 at its own pace. Then perhaps he wouldn't have got the letter telling him
 that she never wanted to see him again. He blamed himself unceasingly: a
 girl you meet in church doesn't expect to be treated like a whore.
  Twice they were halted by pockets of determined resistance: fierce Scots
  veterans whose rapid, accurate rifle fire caused severe casualties among
  the by-now careless Germans. Soon the regiment's trench-mortar units
  arrived, and after a relentless pounding the Scotsmen came out, calling,
  'Kamerad!'
  By this time it was late afternoon and already the wintry daylight was
  beginning to go. They moved on again. They were all more cautious now, and
  tired. On the left, the bugler for the next company was sounding rally.
  Pauli stopped and his bugler did the same. Time for reforming, and a moment
  for the fleet of foot to recover their breath and the slower men to catch
  up.
  A runner from Battalion Headquarters told him to consolidate his position
  and take possession of a British twelve-inch howitzer battery several
  hundred metres to the west. They found it without trouble. Hauptmann Graf
  was already there. His men were energetically plundering the enemy stores.
  The captured battery was a revelation to the German storm troops. The
  Germans were trying on the superb sheepskin coats that the British supplied
  to theirsentries, and there were many who wanted one of the fine leather
  jerkins. More than one fellow was striding around in British officers'
  hand-sewn leather boots. In the officers' mess were all manner of forgotten
  luxuries, including Stilton cheese, smokedsalmon, and a dozen unopened
  cases of Scotch whisky.
  Pauli looked around with interest and apprehension. These were specially
  selected and well-trained soldiers. Given the order, they'd abandon their
  booty and continue the advance. But what of the ordinary German conscripts
  behind them? What would they be doing tonight?
  Pauli decided that such conundrums were best left to the generals. He went
  to report to Captain Graf. 'It's disgraceful,' said Graf. He took off his
  heavy helmet He was a jug-eared little man, gnomelike: a homosexual it was
  whi~pered. But homosexual or not, Graf was a fearless soldrer, respected by
  every man in the regiment. 'Shells were ready and fused. I blame the
  officers. No attempt to disable the guns:

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 dial sights in position, breech blocks in full working order. It's
 disgraceful.'
  'Yes,' said Pauli, amused that Graf should be so indignant about the
  enemy's lack of soldierly dedication.
 'Cowards.'
  'We must have come live kilometres,' said Pauli. 'There's never been a
  breakthrough like this before.'
  Captain Graf grunted. He was smoking and holding in his hand a
  gold-coloured tin of fifty English cigarettes. 'Try one,' he said and
  offered the open tin.
  Pauli lit one up and, after breathing out the smoke, said, 'If the
  advance has been the same all along the battlefront, we must have
  captured a huge piece of ground.'
 'Like them?' said Graf. 'English cigarettes: damned good.'
  'Yes,' said Pauli. He'd never smoked anything so delicious. He studied
  the pale tobacco appreciatively and decided that if he ever became rich
  enough he'd smoke such cigarettes all the time. In the sandbagged shelter
  behind Graf, one of the men had found a gramophone and was winding it up.
  'Do you think we'll go all the way to the coast, Herr Hauptmann?'
 'The coast?'
 'The war is won, isn't it?'
  'Look. at those stores, Winter,' said Captain Graf, turning to look at
  the German soldiers gobbling the captured food. 'Last week I severely
  punished four of my men who'd ground up horse fodder to make flour. They
  said they were hungry. They were, of course. We are all hungry. We ration
  out the shells to our artillery. We don't have enough rubber to make more
  gas masks.' He blew smoke. 'Have you seen what's in that mess hut,
  Winter? Food for the rank and file. Tinned beef, plum jam, good white
  bread, that yellow English cheese. Did you see how much of it there is?
  They told us the English were starving, didn't they?' He sniffed. 'No,
  the war is lost, Winter. The courage of our young men and our meagre
  supplies of shells and bullets can't prevail against this sort of
  plenty.'
  'The war is lost?' said Pauli. Captain Graf was a tough regular officer
  from a good regiment, not the sort of fellow who was easily discouraged.
  'The war is lost,' said Graf. 'No matter how much ground we occupy, we
  cannot win.' The gramophone started playing 'Poor Butterfly'. For a
  moment the two officers listened to it. 'Get your casualty returns sorted
  out. The infantry will be close behind us.

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 They'll pull the storm companies back later tonight, or before first light
 in the morning.'
  Pauli looked to where Koch and other men of his company were sitting on the
  ground, too exhausted even to join in the plundering. How could the war be
  lost? It wasn't fair; it just wasn't fair.

         'The damned war's not over'

 'I wish to God that you'd stop saying the war's over,' Peter told his
 father. He was propped up on an armchair in the drawing room of his parents'
 house in Berlin. His dark-blue naval officer's tunic was resewn where it had
 been ripped, and the gold was missing from one sleeve of it. His left leg
 was in splints and his face badly bruised. 'The damned war's not over and
 perhaps never will be.'
  'They signed the armistice nearly two months ago,' said his father gently.
  His son was in pain and frustrated by his immobility.
  'The British navy is still blockading us. Our people are starving. The
  warships of the High Seas Fleet have red flags flying from their mastheads.
  There are bands of armed ruffians in the streets shooting at each other.
  That traitor Liebknecht has been carried shoulderhigh through the streets
  by soldiers wearing the Iron Cross - and has made a speech from the balcony
  of the Royal Palace. The army has disintegrated. The Kaiser has run away to
  Holland. How can we negotiate a peace treaty? We have nothing to bargain
  with.' It was a cry of pain. The defeat seemed to have affected Peter more
  deeply than any of the rest of the Winter family. Attacked in the street by
  a group of Spartacists, he'd been knocked to his knees by clubs and rifle
  butts. There is little doubt that this drunken, vicious little mob would
  have killed him, but for another mob that came along and started a brawl,
  during which Peter escaped. Since then he'd been confined to the house and
  had done nothing but stare out the window and brood on the consequences of
  the chaos in the streets below.
  Pauli Winter got up from the armchair. He was wearing the better of his two
  army uniforms. It was far from the elegant costumes in which Prussia had
  sent officers to war. Its motley stains had not been removed by scrubbing
  and cleaning, and its shape not been improved by regular baking in the
  delousing ovens. The fine leather boots he'd gone to war wearing were long
  since lost and he wore simple boots and grey putt ees like the ones worn by
  the storm troops. 'I must get back to Battalion Headquarters,' said Pauli.
  'I'll see you

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          'The damned war's not over'

 tomorrow, Peter.' He was in fact on a twenty-four-hour pass, but Pauli
 found that a couple of hours in the gloomy house near Kudamm was all he
 could endure. He'd bought a few cheap presents from a department store in
 Leipziger Strasse, and now he placed them carefully under the Christmas
 tree in the corner. One of the servants had found a few logs, and today,
 with Christmas so near, a fire was burning in the stove. On the sideboard
 he noticed that all the family photos were arrayed, their silver frames
 gleaming. There they were in 1913, the happiest of happy families: two
 smiling children and Mama and Papa standing proudly behind them. How long
 ago it seemed. The family had changed dramatically since then. Now -with
 riots in the streets and Bolsheviks occupying Winter's factories - even
 a log on the fire was a treat to be relished. Harald Winter was stunned
 by thesudden change in his fortunes, and Peter had become a crusty
 invalid. Now it was Mama who held them all together, ventured onto the
 streets, coaxed food from the shopkeepers, and persuaded the servants to
 keep working.
  'Battalion Headquarters! With that ridiculous little Captain Graf in
  command,.' said Peter scornfully. 'You still go on pretending, do you?
  Your Freikorps bati alions are just a lot of uniformed gangsters, and
  Graf is no more than a brigand.'
  'That"s not true,' said Pauli. It was because they were so close that
  Peter knew where to put the knife. 'The Freikorps is a fine organization
  and the arm v fully approves. rhere are thousands of us: disciplined and
  armed. And not just in Berlin - they are being formed all over Germany.
  Every one of our soldiers is a volunteer signed on month by month. In the
  East they will be defending our borders now that the army are
  withdrawing. The Poles, and the rest of thern, would have been looting
  Berlin by now if it wasn't for the Freikorps units out then,.'
 'Thert why don't you march eastwards?' said Peter.
  'Because, like you, we are temporarilv immobilized. When the transport
  and our order~ arrive, perhaps we'll go.' Pauli's tone was mild, not just
  because he remembered the good times they'd shared, but because he was
  frightened that Peter might thoughtlessly blurt Out something about th(
  court-martial and Pauli's assignment to a punishment battalion. lie'd do
  almost anything to prevent his parents from finding out about that.
  'An under strength ba(talion commanded by a captain?'said Peter
  sarcastically. 'Four machine guns, an antique tank, and two armoured
  cars~ What sort of battalion is that?'

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  'The next time the Reds try to take over Berlin, you'll see,' said Pauli.
  He put on his field-grey overcoat and steel helmet and tightened the strap
  under his chin before reaching for his belt and pistol.
  'What's that crooked cross sign you've painted on your helmet?' his father
  asked.
  'It's called a swastika. Many of the Freikorps units wear it to distinguish
  us from the regular army.'
  'Be very careful, Paidi. Remember what happened to your brother.'
  Pauli did remember. Peter had been beaten up just because of the 'imperial
  insignia' on hiN officer's uniform. Many army and navy officers had been
  similarly beaten - and several murdered - by jeering and catcalling thugs
  who were determined to blame the officer class for the war and its outcome.
 'I wear a private's greatcoat and no badges,' said Pauli.
 'But you have an officer's sidearm,' said his father.
  'And I'll use it, too,' said Pauli. 'I'd be grateful for a chance to pick
  off a few of the bastards who tried to kill Peter.'
  'Don't say goodbye to your mother: she'll only worry until you telephone.'
 'I'll telephone if I can, but the telephone lines are sometimes cut.'
  'Take care of yourself, Pauli,' said his father. 'Those mutinous swine are
  holding the Chancellor to ransom.... My God, who could have guessed it
  would come to this? The Chancellor held prisoner by Marxist hooligans.'
  They embraced, and as he grasped him in his arms Pauli was struck by the
  slight, frail frame of his father. Although not yet fifty years old, Winter
  had grown old and tired and apprehensive. Perhaps it was only temporary,
  but it was a sad transformation in a man the boys always remembered as
  dynamic and rather frightening.
  Harald Winter regarded his son with equal sorrow. The war had made Pauli
  into a ruffian. He was brusque and dismissive of all the values that Harald
  Wintei revered. This new Pauli who'd come back from the war was someone his
  father found difficult to cope with. As much as he'd disliked thi.
  dependence that Pauli had demonstrated as a child, he preferred that to the
  new rough-spoken man he'd become. In other words, like many fathers, Harald
  Winter hated to see that his son had grow ri up.
  Pauli took the S-Bahn to Alexanderplatz. The trains were running normally
  but as Pauli walked towards the palace he kept a wary eye

               156
          'The damned war's not over'

 open for marauding bands of troublemakers. He saw a small procession of
 factory woi kers - women, too - going over the Schlossbrikke. They were
 not armed but they carried red banners and chanted slogans, so he remained
 in the shadows until they passed. It was as well to be cautious Schinkel's
 beautiful little guardroom -designed like a Greek temple - was brightly
 lit and he could see soldiers inside, some of them huddled in blankets on
 the stone floor. Were they loyal soldiers assigned to duty by the High
 Command, or Bolshevik renegades? Thei e was no way to know. He hurried
 past.
The Ro, al Palace, 6r what was usually called just the Schloss, was Y
 lit only by light from the (athedral across the road, but against the
 darkening sky he could see the red blanket that mutinous sailors had
 hoisted up, The palace had had no official residents ever since the Kaiser
 abdicated and ran away to Holland. It was at present the home of about
 three thousand bellicose revolutionary sailors of the selfstyled 'People's
 Naval Division' who were now holding the head of government for ransom.
  Pauli kept walking along Unter den Linden. The streetcleaners were not
  in evidence, and in places Pauli had to clamber over piles of snow. Only
  the streetcar tricks had been systematically cleared of it. Despite the
  occasional sounds of rifle fire - and sometimes even the explosion of a
  grenade - the shops were open, and some taxicabs, buses and. streetcars
  were still running. But the shortage of fuel meant that there were more
  horses: ancient Droschken with halfstarved animals plodded through the
  snow. There were a few shoppers hurrying home past street peddlers
  selling crudely made paper Christmas decorations and hot chestnuts.
  Pauli crossed the road to avoid the crowd milling around the gates of the
  Russian Embassy. Since April 1918 the Imperial Russian Embassy had been
  called the Soviet Embassy. At the 1918 party conference, Lenin had told
  the delegates that'. . . weshallgounder without the German
  revolution.'And in response the new staff, of no fewer than three hundred
  people, had been frantically circulating Bolshevik agitators, ready cash
  and crateloads of revolutionary literature throughout Germany. The new
  ambassador - a wealthy Jewish philanthropist from the Crimea - had had
  hoisted across the embassy's faqade a huge red banner that urged 'Workers
  of all countries, unite" Soon afterwards he'd been deported back to
  Russia, but the banner remained.
  Guarding the Interior Ministry were three men with rifles slung over
  their shoulders. Round the corner was a truck with more armed

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 men, their shabby, makeshift uniforms and red armbands identified them as
 members of an irregular band recruited by the new police chief - Emil
 Eichhorn - a radical of the extreme left. On the corner of Wilhelmstrasse
 were some women, one of them weeping uncontrollably. They were on their way
 back from Dorotheen Strasse, where the army's casualty lists were still
 being displayed, with new names every day. The fighting had ended, but
 corpses were still being identified. Pauli walked past them and crossed back
 across the road to the Adlon Hotel.
  He checked his helmet, overcoat and pistol belt at the cloakroom. The
  elderly attendant showed no surprise. He placed the gun and helmet on a
  shelf with silk hats and gave Pauli a small yellow ticket. Pauli went into
  the bar. There was a crowd in here, but the heating was not working, and
  some customers had their overcoats on. He had arranged to meet Alex Horner
  here, and true to form, Alex was sitting near the door with a bottle of
  wine in an ice bucket at his elbow. An extra glass was in place. From the
  dining room next door came the high-spirited music of a gypsy band.
  'How goes the army command?' said Pauli. He sat down and waited for the
  waiter to pour his wine.
  'Excellent!' said Alex. 'And how are things at home?'Alex was not in
  uniform. He was wearing a smart new grey flannel suit, white shirt and dark
  tie, but no one in the bar - or in Berlin, for that matter -could possibly
  have mistaken him for anything but a Prussian of the Officers Corps.
  'Peter is still moaning. Papa won't leave the house and says it's on
  account of the influenza epidemic. Mama has become something of a tyrant
  but she still manages to serve meat, even for lunch: sauerbraten today. I
  had two helpings.'
 'Your mother is a woman of infinite resource,' said Alex.
  Alex had secured an excellent job - or rather, his influential relative in
  the War Department had secured it for him. After the failure of the big
  German offensive of 1918, he was sent to Supreme Headquarters in Spa,
  Belgium, and appointed an aide de camp to General Schammer, the military
  governor of Berlin.
  The present military governor was a rather disreputable civilian but that
  didn't prevent Alex from lording it over his old friend, for there was a
  great difference between duties on behalf of the headquarters of the
  Imperial German Army and being with the Freikorps, an ad hoc assembly of
  entbusiastic volunteers consisting almost entirely of men the army had no
  place for.

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          'The damned war's not over'

  Alex liked to give his friend insightful anecdotes about life among the
  generals. For a few minutes Alex entertained him with stories about the
  new commander of the German Army. 'General Groener is a good sort,' said
  Alex. 'He's highly intelligent and not at all stuffy.'
  'He's a Schwab,' said Pauli before sipping some wine. 'Get rid of all
  these damned Prussians, I say.' It was a Riesling from Alsace, just cold
  enough and it tasted delicious. Goodness knows when he'd taste its like
  again: under the terms of the armistice Alsace was now a part of France
  once more.
  Alex grinned. Although Pauli was born in Vienna to an American mother,
  his upbringing was hardly less Prussian than his friend's, but there was
  a running joke that Alex was a Prussian of the most inflexible
  old-fashioned kind and Pauli was the oppressed Southerner. The friendship
  between the two boys was based on a long time together and mutual
  respect. And yet, right from the time they'd first met at Lichterfelde,
  Pauli was the admirer and Alex, by common consent, was granted an edge
  of seniority. The admiration that Pauli had always shown for his elder
  brother Peter was reflected in his respect for Alex. And, typically, Alex
  responded to this faith that Pauli showed by revealing to him his most
  treasured secret. Alex said, 'Although the Chancellor is being held
  prisoner in his office there's a secret telephone line from the
  Chancellery to the army. Chancellor Ebert has asked the army for help.'
  'Good God!' said Pauli. Everyone believed that the mutinying sailors had
  cut all the lines from the Chancellery and that Ebert - the new socialist
  head of government - was being held incommunicado.
  'That's just between the two of us,' said Alex. 'It's a closely guarded
  secret, not to be passed on even to your father.'
 'Just as you say, Alex. But it changes things, doesn't it?'
  'Yes, and the army will do what has to be done,' said Alex enigmatically.
  'Those mutinous pigs will find out what it means tomorrow.'
 'Christmas Eve?' said Pauli. 'Why?'
 'Are you in a hurry?' said Alex languidly.
  'I've got all the time you need,'said Pauli, sipping some more wine and
  leaning forward to hear what Alex had to tell.
 'It all began on November 9,' said Alex.
 'Everything did,' said Pauli.

 That much was true: everything began on November 9, 1918. The army's
 commanders - too arrogant to face the consequences of their

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 own defeat - had sent some unfortunate civilians through the wire of
 no-man's-land to seek an armistice from the Allies, as the Turks and
 Austrians had already done. During that Saturday, the Imperial German Army
 ceased to exist as a unified fighting force. Red flags were flying all over
 the land as soldiers' committees took control. Alex Horner, on one of his
 regular visits to Supreme Headquarters from Berlin, was shown the reports.
 It was amazing: the army's command structure collapsed like a deck of cards.
 'Riots in Magdeburg'; then, early in the afternoon, '7th Army Corps Reserve
 District rioting threatened'. Halle and Leipzig were declared 'red' by 5:00
 p.m., and soon afterwards Dfisseldorf, Halstein, Osnabriick and Lauenburg
 went, too. So did Magdeburg, Stuttgart, Oldenburg, Brunswick, and Cologne.
 By this time the soldiers at Supreme HQ had stopped saluting the officers,
 and some of the offices were deserted. At igoo hours, news came that the
 general officer commanding i 8th Army Corps Reserve at Frankfurt was
 'deposed'. It was all over. By early evening Kaiser Wilhelm, Emperor of
 Germany and 'All-highest Warlord', was sitting in the dining car of his
 private train, waiting for it to leave the siding and start the journey that
 would take him to exile in Holland.
  In Berlin the socialist Cabinet, which had been created without any legal
  transfer of power, could not contain the disorder. They ordered the army to
  rip up sections of railway fine and so interrupt the trainloads of mutinous
  soldiers and sailors that were arriving in the capital in ever-increasing
  numbers. When Alex arrived at the Lehrter station, in a train that had
  taken two and a half days to reach Berlin from Belgium, he was startled to
  see that army machine-gun teams commanded a field of fire along every
  platform and the main concourse. Troops were occupying the gas and
  electricity works, the goverrunent buildings on Withelmstrasse were all
  guarded, and there were even armed soldiers outside some of the town's
  finest restaurants.
  By the time that Leutnant Homer reported to Berlin's military governor,
  that governor was a socialist civilian named Otto Weis. The Imperial Army's
  Berlin garrison having deserted - and having no more than a handful of
  civil policemen at his disposal - Weis had put together a force of
  ex-soldiers and armed civilians. Most of the rifles had been bought from
  the deserters who, standing alongside the flower girls, were doing a brisk
  trade at the Potsdamer Platz at two marks per gun. Even the 'army's' trucks
  had been purchased in this way from the deserters. Weis had given his
  scratch force the

                i6o
          'The damned war's not over'

 grandiose title of Republikanische Soldaten - the Republican Soldiers'
 Army - but they were a motley collection difficult to distinguish from the
 extreme left Sicherheitswehr that the Police President employed, or from
 any of the other armed mobs who patrolled the city looking for victims and
 plunder. Moreover, Weis's army was infiltrated by many Spartacists and the
 extreme-left Independents.
  It needed only one visit lo the military governor's office to convince
  Alex Horner that his officer's uniform was not suitable attire. He bought
  a suit in a tailor's shop in F riedrichstrasse - the first ready-made
  suit he'd ever worn - and went back to work feeling less uneasy. Ile did
  notice the way that the carefully positioned beggars watched him as he
  arrived. There were few beggars to be seen on the streets in these early
  days of the revolution. Most of the uniformed ex-servicemen who stood
  outside the department stores and food shops hoping for money still had
  enough dignity to be offering a tray of bootlaces, matches or candles.
  Yet these fellows made no pretence of being pedlars, and Alex was
  convinced that they were spies. Police spies, Bolsheviks, Spartacists and
  foreigners, too: the city was alive with spies of all shapes and sizes,
  and of every political colour. Berlin had always been a city of spies and
  informers, and it probably always would be.
  Berlin's most serious problem was created by the naval mutineers who'd
  arrived from the Northern naval bases and settled themselves into the
  Imperial Palace. The fiasco ofthis People's Naval Division turned sour
  when the sailors became more menacing and demanded their 'Christmas
  bonus'. ne sailors had been under the influence of Karl Liebknecht ever
  since occupying the Imperial Palace. And it was Liebknecht's declared
  intent to bring down the moderate socialist government of Friedrich Ebert
  - a forty- seven -year-old exsaddle maker -- by anarchy and confusion.
  Having the sailors demand ever more money was very much to Liebknecht's
  taste. If Ebert was frightened by the extortion and paid out the money,
  the government would demonstrate their weakness. If they moved against
  the sailors, it would be a sign that thev were the sort of treacherous,
  reactionary, anti-working-class government that Liebknecht said they
  were. Either way it would make things easier for Liebknecht to seize
  power and set up his Leninist regime.
  It was December 20 when the sailors announced that they'd spent the first
  125,000 marks the government had paid them for guarding the Imperial
  Palace. Now they wanted more money.

                161
          Nineteen hundred and eighteen

  Alex Horner was in the anteroom of the Chancellor's private office when
  Otto Weis came out with Ebert. It was the first time Alex had seen the
  Chancellor at such close quarters. He was an imposing figure, broad and
  muscular, with jet-black hair and a large moustache and small beard. The
  goverrunent had agreed to pay more money, but first the palace must be
  evacuated and the People's Naval Division reduced to six hundred men. The
  money would be paid only after the keys of the emptied palace had been
  given to Otto Weis.
  On the morning of the day on which Alex and Pauh met, Alex had hurried down
  to the lobby of the Chancellery in response to a phone call from one of the
  secietaries. A delegation of sailors was being taken to one of the drawing
  rooms that were situated to the side of the fine Empire vestibule. One
  sailor was carrying a leather case that he said held the keys of the
  Imperial Palace. They wanted their money.
  'Herr Horner is one of the military governor's assistants,' said the
  secretary, who was dealing with the sailors. He was a sniffy little man
  with the curt and superior manner that distinguishes career bureaucrats.
  The spokesman for the sailors, a tall petty officer with crooked teeth,
  asked for Alex Homer's identity papers. Luckily Weis had arranged such
  formalities as soon as the young officer got back to the
  revolution-stricken city. Taken to a Reichstag office by an attendant
  wearing the livery of the old regime, he'd been given a pass by a woman
  clerk wearing a red armband. It was an inexpertly printed card on stiff red
  paper. It said that Horner was 'authorized to maintain order and security
  in the streets of the city'. Accompanying it was an identity card issued by
  the 'Workers' and Soldiers' Council' saying he was 'trustworthy and free to
  pass'. Neither document mentioned his military rank, and if the woman
  issuing the papers to him knew him to be an army officer she gave no sign
  of it. From the way she handled the office files, it looked as if she was
  occupying the same desk as she had before the revolution. Most of the
  workers were doing the same thing that they'd done during the Kaiserzeit
  without the red bands and banner,,,. For the Berliner, life was simply a
  matter of exchanging time for money and money for food. Even during the
  shooting,, the buses ran on time and the water and electricity supply
  continued normally.
  Having scrutinized Horner's papers, the petty officer showed him his card
  in return. 'Petty Officer Esser'. How curious that so many of these
  revolutionary servicemen clung so tightly to the badges and titles and
  privileges of thc old regime.

                162
          'The damned war's not over'

  Esser politely but firmly explained to Horner and the secretary that the
  political committee of the People's Naval Division had decided that
  they'd not deal with Otto Weis, who, although a socialist, was 'a class
  enemy'.
  'Then give the keys to Herr Barth,' suggested Alex. He was grateful that
  the secretary had not revealed the fact that he was an army officer.
  'Herr Barth is in a meeting and cannot be disturbed.' The secretary
  expected them to band the keys to him and depart without further delay.
  Despite wearing a small red ribbon in his buttonhole -a sartorial
  accessory that had been adopted by many middle-class office workers
  during the previous few days -- the man did not hide his impatience and
  his distaste for the unwashed revolutionaries.
 'Then get him out of the meeting,' suggested Alex.
  The secretary shook his head to show that there could be no question of
  interrupting the commissioner. Emil Barth was amongst the most radical
  of the commissioners, but these wretched socialists had quickly adapted
  to the bureaucracy of Wilhelmstrasse: meetings, meetings, meetings. And
  the bureaucrats had easily adapted to their new masters.
  'That would be impossible,' said the secretary. He was an elderly man
  with rimless spectacles, bushy eyebrows and a celluloid collar that was
  going yellow at the edges, like the documents that were to be seen on
  every side.
 'Try,' suggested Alex, and the sailors vociferously agreed.
  Now there were more arguments and some telephone calls. Everyone who
  might have placated the sailors had gone to lunch, and the
  revolutionaries were be(oming angrier every minute.
  Before the problem was resolved, a messenger came rushing into the lobby
  with an urgent request for Alex Horner. He must go immediately to the
  office of Herr Otto Weis. Weis had been kidnapped.
  It was not difficult to discover what had happened. Weis's staff were
  standing in the corridor talking in loud voices. Some of the women were
  sobbing. The~ told how another group of sailors had entered the building
  by a side door, found their way upstairs, and demanded the
  Christmas-bonus money from Weis. Weis was heard to say they'd gei no
  money until he had the key.
  Which of th~ sailors w is the first to strike Weis makes no difference,
  for SOOD he ww beaten and frog-marched back to the Impciial Palace, which
  tht sailors obviousiv had no intention of

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          Nineteen hundred and eighteen

 leaving. According to a message that Alex received later that day from a
 paid informer, Wels was beaten with rifle butts and thrown into a
 rat-infested cellar.
  That afternoon a large party of the sailors went back to the Chancellery.
  They were in a bitter frame of mind. They pushed their way into the lobby,
  posted armed guards at every exit, and took control of the Chancellery
  telephone exchange. No one - not even the Chancellor - would be permitted
  to enter or leave the building. They had Wels as a hostage and they wanted
  their money.

 Pauli had listened to Alex Horner's long story with intermittent attention.
 He'd studied the other people in the bar, with particular interest in the
 younger women. He'd had so little free time since the war began -- so little
 time amongst civilians that he'd still not got accustomed to the shorter
 skirts and the display of female ankles. Women had worn full-length skirts
 since ancient Greece; surely there was something apocalyptic about the new
 fashion. If not apocalyptic, certainly provocative, especially when some of
 the younger ones wore these flesh-coloured stockings!
  Between them they'dfinished one bottle of wine and were nearly at the
  bottom ot-a second one. Now Pauli realized that Alex had reached a stage in
  his story when some contribution from Pauli was expected. 'What did you
  mean about the sailors' finding out something tomorrow?'
  Alex glanced back over his shoulder to be sure he wasn't overheard. Next
  door the gypsy band was playing sad Hungarian ballads. 'The Chancellor used
  the secret telephone link to summon help from the army. Groerier is sending
  troops. We'll crush those Red swine once and for all.'
 'Sending t liem here I To the Royal Palace?'
  'The goN ernment isa prisoner, Pauli. They are being held hostage by those
  people. Greener has ordered several squadrons of the Imperial Horse Guards
  from the Poi sdam barracks to march. They'll be here by midnight.'
 'Will the troops fire on the sailors~'
  'The Imperial Horst Guards have remained loyal to their officers. There are
  a Jew other reliable men coining. Artillery, too. They'll blast their Nvay
  into the palace.'
 'The sailors won't siand much chance against artillery.'
  'They'v( brought it on themselves. I've no sympathy for those gangsters.'

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          'The damned war's not over'

 That fellow Esser you mentioned. I know him.'
  The petty officer?' Alex's blasd mask dropped and he registered surprise.
  'How the devil did you come to know a fellow like that? From the
  Punishment Battalion?'
  Pauli laughed. 'No, the real rogues don't end up in the Punishment
  Battalions, Alex. The real ones end up as generals. We both know that.'
  Such remarks made Alex nervous. He looked round again to make sure they
  weren't overheard; even so he disassociated himself from such sentiments.
  'I'm not sure about that, Pauli,' he mumbled.
 'I'd like to try and get Esser out of there,' said Pauli.
 'Get him out?'
 'He's a good sort.'
 :There are no "good sorts" there, Pauli. They are all scum.'
  I can't leave him to be killed,' said Pauli. 'He was my friend. He's the
  son of a villager from where my grandparents lived.'
 'It's too dangerous,' said Alex.
  'Don't be a fool,'said Pauli.'No one's going to harm me simply for going
  along to the palace to have a word with Esser.'
 :You're in uniform.'
 A private's uniform.'
  'These people are mutineers, Pauli. One look at you and they'll know
  you're a member of the Officer Corps. And the Freikorps is the avowed
  enemy of the revolution.'
 'I'll have to go. Was it midnight you said the soldiers will arrive?'
 'On your honour, you mustn't warn them,' said Alex.
  Pauli smiled. 'You must be joking, Alex. No secrets remain secret in this
  town for more than half an hour.'
  'Then I shall come with you. Perhaps I can persuade them to release
  Weis.'
 'That would be a feather in your cap, Alex.'
  Alex nodded seriously and swigged the last of his Riesling. 'The more I
  come to think of it, the more amusing it sounds. Let's go, Pauli.'

 It was only a short walk down Unter den Linden from the Adlon Hotel to the
 Imperial Palace. As they came out of the hotel, the street was illuminated
 by the lights of the British Embassy. The Armistice Commission were said
 to be using it, but there was no sign of British soldiers there. From the
 far side of the Pariser Platz, close to the Brandenburg Gate, they heard
 a brass band playing energetically: a

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 Christmas carol. It sounded like a military band, but there was no way to be
 sure. Beyond the gate, the Tiergarten was being used as a military camp, but
 no one knew the allegiance of the soldiers. Probably the men werc just
 remaining close to the army soup kitchens that had been set up there. Half
 a metre of snow had fallen upon Berlin, and thesounds of the city were
 muffled under the white blanket, so that even the music of the band was
 distant and muted. They plodded on, icy impacted snow under their feet.
 'You've changed, Pauli. You've changed a lot.'
  "We've grown older,' said Pauli, dismissing the idea. His father was always
  talking about the way Pauli had changed. Hadn't Peter changedi Hadn't Mama
  changed? And hadn't Harald Winter changed most of all?
  'It's more complicated than that,' persisted Alex. 'Was it the Punishment
  Battalion?' They'd been together many times since Pauli had served his
  sentence, but until now the Punishment Battalion had been a taboo subject.
 'Changed in what way?'
  'You're tougher, more determined. In the old days you wouldn't have come
  looking for trouble. You'd have let a fellow such as Esser fend for
  himself.'
  'The Punishment Battalion was nothing. It was a relief to get away from
  that pig Brand. Sometimes I pitied you for still having to endure the
  brute.'
 'But they sent you into all the hardest fighting.'
  'It wasn't so bad. It made a man of me. I learned how to survive -survive
  when all the odds were against survival, survive when all around me were
  dying.'
  'And after that you went to serve in a Sturmbataillon. Tell me about that.
  Was it like the Punishment Battalion?'
  'It was like nothing you've ever seen. With more such units we would have
  won, Alex.'
  'It wasn't the lack of storm battalions, Pauli. It was these damned
  civilians who stabbed us in the back. As an officer I remain loyal to the
  government, but it's hard to forget that these politicians we take orders
  from are the cowards and socialists who railed against the army all through
  the war. . . .' He stopped; even now his officer training inhibited him
  against such outbursts, 'But tell me about the storm battalion.'
  'No rifles: carbines, and lightweight machine pistols, and small flame
  throwers. Everything was designed for lightness and fast

                166
          'The damned war's not over'

 movement. Even the other ranks got pistols. Special uniforms, leather pads
 on elbows and knees. No cartridge pouches - we stuffed rounds into our
 pockets. Round our necks we carried bags of grenades. We were unstoppable
 ... and ruthless.'
 'They took you as a Stosstruppfuhrer.'
  'They didn't care that I'd been in a Punishment Battahon, if that's what
  you mean. Yes, they made me a Stosstruppfiihrer. There were plenty of
  vacancies: officers always had to lead their men into the attack. Only
  young, unmarried men were accepted, and the physical was the strictest
  I've ever had.'
  'I envy you the experience, Pauli. The storm battalions have become a
  legend. But you were lucky to survive.'
  'You mustn't believe all the stories you hear, Alex. Storm troops were
  kept in the rear until they were needed for some special task-, even then
  they took us most of the way by truck. And we had lots of leave, and the
  food was always the very best available.'
 :You sound nostalgic, Pauli.'
  Let me explain something to you, Alex. You grew up wanting to be an army
  officer. But I never wanted to go to cadet school. It was my father's
  idea. I loved my father - I still do - but my father has no respect for
  me-, he thinks I'm brainless, and he doesn't care about anything except
  brains, especially the sort of brains that know how to make money. My
  elder brother doesn't give a damn about Father, but he's the one my
  father loves. I realized that I didn't have the brains that my brother
  Peter has, so I went to the cadet school the way Papa wanted. Now
  soldiering is the only trade I know.'
  'Well, now the workers' and soldiers' committees are taking over all your
  father's factories, it's ended up making little difference to you.'
 'Papa will find a way; he always does.'
 'But you seemed happy enough at Lichterielde.'
  'Yes, I came to like it. I've always been adaptable: younger brothers
  have to adapt to what everyone else wants. And I liked the respect that
  an officer's uniform got for me. Do you remember, Alex? Members of the
  Officer Corps were gods. I loved all that, Alex, the bowing and scraping
  that I got from civilians. I loved being saluted, and the way that people
  stood aside to let me pass in the street and let me be served first in
  shops.'
  'I suppose we all did. And yet here we are: me skulking in civilian
  clothes and you masquerading as a private soldier.' Pauli looked at his
  friend. Alex was wearing a grey bowler hat and an old-fashioned

                167
         Nineteen hundred and eighteen

 Inverness - a loose-fitt ing grey overcoat with attached shoulder cape. It
 wasn't a particularly odd costume amid the curiously garbed people to be
 seen on t ~ie cii y's streets, but it was hardly appropriate for a Prusiian
 officer.
  Pauli nodded. 'Ario I even loved the Kaiser. I loved the idea that somoane
  knew what %x as best for Germany and what was best for the army and he
  Officers 0--orps and what was best for me. And when the war went on and all
  sorts of riffraff like Brand managed to get commissions, I still didn't
  care, because those people weren't real officers: the Prussiark Officer
  Corps was still a small elite that outsiders couldn't enter.' They walked
  in silence for a few moments while Pauli collected and ordered his
  thoughts. 'And then came the Sturmbataillon. It was a world I'd never
  known. It let me be myself. I wish you'd been with me, Alex.'
 'You said that in one of your letters.'
  'We spoke using "du", officers and men alike. I called my men by their
  first names, and often we'd be sitting around talking together with no rank
  deferemials. Arguing politics, or talking about what kind of Germany we'd
  have after the war.'
  'And did any of you guess it would be like this?' Alex whipped his walking
  stick through the heaped snow.
  Pauli snorted. 'Who could have guessed it would end like this? No one! Who
  would have guessed that the Kaiser would run away so that Fritz Esser and
  his friend Liebknecht would be sitting in the Imperial Palace? Who'd guess
  that a collection of half-baked intellectuals and socialist draft dodgers
  would be running Germany as a ramshackle republic, and that the Imperial
  Horse Guards would be answering their call for help?'
  'I thought you were about to tell me that your time with the common man had
  provided you with a new understanding of the socialists, Pauli.'
  'Socialists are dreamers. The time for dreaming is long past. Our
  Fatherland is dying, and no one goes to help.'He kicked the top from a
  mountain of snow, so that it shattered into a white cloud.
  When they got to Friedrichstrasse they had to wait for the traffic before
  they could cross the road. It was astounding how life went on, seemingly
  unaffected by the fact that the city was in the throes of revolution. Even
  while shooting could be heard, the Christmas shoppers crowded the pavements
  and the motor buses kept going. There was the smoky smell of rcasted
  chestnuts and the sound of American jazz music from one of the nearby
  clubs. A shop assistant

                168
          'The damned war's not over'

 and a chauffeur were loading dozens of coloured parcels into a large car
 while a fur-coated matron counted them. It was hard to believe that the
 dull thuds heard earlier that day had been mortar shells exploding, and
 that right now artillery was on its way to assault the Imperial Palace.
  'Civilians have their own affairs to attend to,' commented Alex as they
  crossed the road, dodging a taxicab.
 'Making money, do you mean?' said Pauli scornfully.
 'You can't live without it.'
  'There are other, more important things than money, Alex. That's what I
  learned with the storm troops, and that's what many of our Freikorps
  volunteers believe,'
 'Are they men from your old storm troops?'
  'In my battalion a dozen or so are old comrades. That's what made me
  join. If recruiting continues as at present, I'll have my own company
  next month.'
  Alex Homer chuckled. 'And all this time I've been thinking that you'd
  become old and cynical, Pauli. While really you are the same fervent
  optimist and dreamer that I've always known.'
 :You can mock me, but . - .'
  I'm not mocking you, Pauli. We all feel the same way. Everyone I know and
  respects feels more or less the way that you do. They all feel frustrated
  watching this damned goverrunent being treated with contempt by every
  rascal at home, and spat upon by Paris, London and Washington.'
 'But you remain aloof? Or are you just fatalistic?'
  'If the mob wants to be ruled by the Spartacists, then so be it. I'm a
  professional soldier; I'll obey lawful commands from the army, just as
  the Russian army do under Lenin.'
  Pauli shook his head. 'You are too na1ve, Alex. Do you really think that
  Lenin represents the Russian worker? Lenin's party is a tiny, noisy,
  violent group that seized power and then slaughtered all the opposition.
  Now, here in Germany, Ebert's socialists are in the majority but the
  Spartacists are already trying some of Lenin's tricks to get power in
  Germany. And then heaven help Liebknecht's opponents. They'll be put
  against the wall and shot without trial.'
  Behind them they heard the sound of marching men coming down the
  Lindenfrom the direction of the Tiergarten. In the darkness the soldier's
  hobnailed boots were striking sparks from the paving. They were Uhlan
  Guards. The two young officers watched approvingly as the soldiers
  wheeled into the entrance to the university. There were

                16q
          Nineteen hundred and eighteen

few such trained and disciplined units left in the whole of Gemany. As the
 two men got closer to the Imperial Palace, Unter den Linden became more
 crowded. There were the usual streetcorner groups of men in makeshift
 uniforms. Most of them had their rifles slung over the shoulder
 muzzle-down in what had become the style of all. the revolutionaries. But
 these armed men were outnumbered by sightseers who'd arrived in response
 to the rumours that were now being spread across the city. They wanted to
 see how the army was going to tackle the bellicose sailors. Or, as another
 rumour had it, they wanted to watch the army's monarchists staging a
 counterrevolution.
  When Alex and Pauli reached the main entrance of the palace, three
  sentries were there, pale-faced youngsters with soft, sailor hats, and
  bandoliers crossing their chest. They were warming their hands at a
  bonfire on the pavement. In the fire could be seen bits of antique
  furniture, its polish and gilt bubbling and blistering in the flames.
  They asked the guards for Esser. It took a long time to find him. Alex
  and Pauli stood by the fire and tried to see into the courtyard. Even
  from their limited view of the interior it was clear that the sailors
  were excited and frightened by the prospect of a pitched battle with the
  army units that were marching from Potsdam.
  After about fifteen minutes an armed sailor took them inside and
  upstairs. Esser, typically, had bivouacked in the Empress's private
  apartments, and that is where they were taken. Although the whole place
  had been ransacked, many of the personal possessions of the royal
  occupants were in evidence. Lace jackets and long ball dresses were still
  hanging in the Empress's dressing rooms. Her writing desk had been broken
  into, and sheets of stationery and envelopes were scattered round,
  presumably by those people who'd been hawking examples of the royal
  correspondence round the streets. On the floor were powder boxes, some
  hairbrushes, combs and silver frames from which photos had been wrenched.
  And yet the overall impression of this sanctum was of charmless
  vulgarity, an ostentatious collection of frivolous knick-knacks that
  might be expected in the house of some nouveau-riche tradesman.
  'The chairman of the sailors' and workers' emergency committee will come
  in five minutes,' announced a bearded sailor.
 'Is that Fritz Esser?' Pauli asked.
  'Yes, Comrade Esser,' said the sailor. 'You are not permitted to touch
  anything or to leave the room on pain of death; do you understand?'

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          'The damned war's not over'

  'Yes, we understand,' said Leutnant Horner. He had by now grown used to
  the extravagant rhetoric of the revolution.

 For 'Chairman' Fritz Esser of the People's Naval Division it had been an
 eventful day, even when compared with the other crowded days of the past
 few weeks. But, as had happened so often since those early days of
 November x918, he'd been outguessed and outmanoeuvred and eventually
 shouted down.
  The trouble was that Esser never properly evaluated his opposition. It
  had been like that right from the time the naval mutinies began. Fritz
  Esser was usually the first to spot an opportunity, but he lacked the
  skill and cynicism to follow through his advantage.
  For instance, the Spartacists and the left-wing radicals of the
  Independents had always expected that the revolution, about which they'd
  talked for years, would begin amongst the tired, frightened and exhausted
  front-line soldiers, rather than amongst sailors or civilians. It was
  Fritz Esser who'd persisted with his secret meetings and inflammatory
  leaflets directed at the crews of the battleships and battle cruisers of
  the High Seas Fleet, which had spent almost the entire war anchored in
  the Northern ports.
  It was Esser - in a secret report to one of Liebknecht's acolytes -who'd
  told them that fighting men would be the last ones to mutiny, That was
  evident here in the seaports, where there was little interest in Karl
  Marx amongst the U-boat crews or the men who'd chosen dangerous duty with
  the torpedo boats and destroyers that regularly sailed out to fight the
  enemy. The men who came to his meetings were the crews of the big ships:
  conscripts from the cities, bored, discontented men who chafed at the
  restrictions of military life and had nothing to do but parade, chip rust
  and paint their towering steel prisons. These men, who had never heard
  a shot fired in anger, were the ones who listened to Esser's dreams of
  tomorrow.
  Even the previous summer, after Esser had encouraged men of the
  battleship Prinzregent Luizpold to walk ashore at Wilhelmshaven in
  defiance of orders - a crime for which two of Esser's fellow believers
  faced an army firing squad - the Spartacists did not believe that the
  High Seas Fleet was a fertile ground in which their agitators could
  scatter the seeds of revolution. Esser's reports were ignored. In
  September a Spartacist leader told Esser that the Naval High Command's
  reforms -'food committees', elected by the sailors, were henceforward to
  distribute the rations - had removed the promise of further revolt.

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          Nineteen hundred and eighteen

  It was only when, posted to Kiel, Esser had got the real mutinies going
  there that the Spartacist leadership started to take notice. But even then
  they were lukewarm and pointed out that the mutiny was only a reaction to
  being ordered to sea for a final suicide battle with the British navy. The
  Spartacists' political committee in Berlin seemed offended by the fact that
  the sailors lacked political motivation. They insisted that this mutiny
  would never become the workers' revolution they wanted.
  Esser and his friends ignored the dicta from Berlin. It was one of Esser's
  young disciples whose speeches prompted the stokers on the battleship
  Helgoland to draw their slicers through the coals, bring them out on the
  floor plates, and damp the fires with the hoses. Without heat enough to
  make steam Admiral von Hipper's order to put to sea could not be obeyed.
  And when the U-135 threatened to torpedo the Thiiringen unless its
  mutineers surrendered, it was one of Esser's converts who persuaded the
  Helgoland's gunners to level their sights at the submarine. That Esser
  wasn't present for this fiasco, which ended with the mutineers in prison,
  did not change his proud claim to have started the revolution. For within
  a few days not only Kiel but dozens of other towns and cities as well were
  under the control of workers'and sailors' councils. The army did nothing to
  put down the revolt: it was too widespread.
  And so, when Esser got to Berlin with the vanguard of the mutinying sailors
  who now called themselves the Volksmarine or People's Naval Division, he
  expected to be greeted with praise and thanks by the Spartacist hierarchy.
  But Esser was brushed aside as the politicians took control of the
  revolution in which they had shown so little belief. Esser became no more
  than a minor party functionary, a chairman for a commit tee that until
  today was asked to do nothing more important than arrange duty rosters for
  the cleaning of the billets and settle disputes between the numerous
  drunks, thieves and petty criminals who soon attached themselves to the
  sailors.
  The important decisions about Spartacist policy - or lack of any -were
  being made by the same people who'd given Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg
  such bad advice in the past. Self-serving men with hard eyes, dark suits
  and sharp city accents dismissed Esser and his like as country bumpkins
  without the sort of political sophistication that was needed to steer the
  forthcoming revolution, which would sweep the temporary socialist
  government from power and replace it with uncompromising authoritarian
  rule.

                172
          'The damned war's not over'

  And yet the men and women who could hear only Esser's country accent
  would have done well to study his conclusions, for Esser was shrewd and
  perceptive. Esser's report on the irregular army formations - Freiwillige
  Landesjagerkorps or Freikorps - now springing up all over Germany was
  something that Spartacist leaders would have done well to read. Esser had
  become an expert on discontent, and he was able to distinguish the
  discontent of the sailors he'd helped to bring to a state of mutiny and
  the sort of discontent that was furnishing the Freikorps with more men
  than they could properly clothe and arm.
  Few sailors of the Naval Division had seen any action in the war.
  Typically they were unmarried ex-factory workers with no fixed addresses.
  ~ome of them went on regular forays of looting and housebreaking and even
  demanding money from wefl-dressed people in the streets, always
  disguising their crimes with neat political labels. The sailors remained
  in the Imperial Palace because they were being provided with payments by
  the government - who were frightened of them - and because it was warmer
  and more comfortable than the street to which they would otherwise be
  relegated. As long as Liebknecht and Luxemburg encouraged them, they
  would cheer the Spartacists' speeches.
  The men of the Freikorps were a totally different proposition, as Esser
  pointed out. The Freikorps recruits came largely from frontline soldiers.
  For these men the world was divided into 'the front' and 'the rear'. The
  rear were the civilians who'd made so much money in the war factories and
  the bosses who owned them. The rear were the bankers and the financiers,
  the pacifists who'd made speeches against the war, and the 'November
  criminals' who'd signed the armistice. Although officers were excluded
  from the People's Naval Division, the Freikorps soldiers readily included
  their battle-hardened officers as part of their exclusive fraternity.
  Perhaps it was while compiling his neglected report that Fritz Esser
  began to discover something about himself. Esser had never been in
  battle. His naval service had been spent in the comparative comfort and
  the indisputable safety of Imperial Naval barracks. And although he"d
  never admitted it, Esser felt uneasy about his passive role in this,
  great 'war to end wars', for Esser - despite his revolutionary
  declarations - had the inborn respect for the warrior that so burdens the
  German soul.
  Endless bickering, inarticulate committees meeting long into the night
  without reaching any conclusions, had wearied and dis-
  
                173
          Nineteen hundred and eighteen

 illusioned him. And on this Monday evening, the 23rd day of December,
 1918, Es,;er had reached the end of his patience. The prospect ofthe
 Imperial Palace comirig under attack by loyal units of the army frightened
 him, and he made no secret of his fear. Even the lightartillery thai
 informers said were being readied at Potsdam would be enough tc, blow the
 main doors in, and the effect of shrapnel fire in these (,onfined spaceg
 would not bear thinking about.
  Arid yet trying to get this simple fact understood by his committee had
  proved far beyond his power. Not that any of the committee members
  offered a sensible alternative to his suggestion that they open talks
  with Ebert and release their hostages - Otto Weis in particular - as a
  gesture of good faith. Ile was shouted down by cries of 'Traitor!' and
  'No surrender!' rather than defeated in rational discussion. Finally
  Esser exploded with rage. He yelled obscenities at these pompous
  pen-pushers - Bonzen, he called them - and stormed out of the meeting.
  It was then that the messenger came to say that two army
  plenipotentiaries were waiting for him downstairs. This was the beginning
  of the end. He felt frightened. Now what was he supposed to do?
  Temporize, yes, but how?
  'I am Esser, committee chairman. What is it?' Esser fixed them with his
  dark, piercing eyes. Pauli immediately recognized his friend, who'd grown
  into a barrel-chested giant, pea jacket open, red neckerchief at his
  throat and sailor cap on the back of his closecropped head.
 'Fritz! Remember me, Pauli Winter? Travemiinde.'
  Esser didn't recognize Pauli. His eyes went to Alex Homer. He recognized
  Homer from the meeting in the Chancellery; he was some sort of military
  aide to Otto Weis. It was to be expected that the army would send him to
  parley about the release of Berlin's military governor. Esser had opposed
  the idea of holding the socialist politician here as hostage: it was
  nothing better than kidnapping and extortion. Such tactics would not
  endear the People's Naval Division to the working class. Esser knew the
  working class: they were moralists.
 'Come away from the palace, Fritz. I want to talk to you.'
  Esser went t ' o the window. It was dark outside, but he could see the
 C7owds. He thought he could see the lights from the cathedral
 shining on steel helmets. But steel helmets didn't mean that the army
 had arrived; half the population of Berlin seemed to be wearing steel
 helmets and carrying guns. He turned back to look at the two men.
 The fellow from Weis's office was unmistakably a Prussian officer,

                174
          'The damned war's aot (yDer'

 despite the bowler hat, w~.tking stick and long overcoat. The other was
 dressed in a battered army greatcoat and a steel helmet with a swastika
 painted on the front. They shouldn't have let him in here with that pistol
 strapped to his belt, but it was too late now.
 'Fritz!' said Pauli once more.
  He recognized him now. The kid from the big house at Travernihide: Paul
  Wintei. Perhaps it was going to be all right. He grabbed the young man's
  outstretched hand. 'What the devil are you doing here? Did the army send
  you?'
 'The army? No.'
  'Good God, Pauli, the guards only brought you in here because they
  thought you were sent by the army to negotiate with us.'
 'Come and have a beer, Fritz.'
  Esser turned to Alex Horner. 'You haven't come here to ask for the
  release of Otto Weis?'
  Alex was on the point of saying, to the devil with Weis. Instead he told
  Esser, 'Herr Winter is my friend.'
  'Then let's go and drink beer!' said Fritz Esser loudly. He smiled to
  show his crooked teeth. 'I'll buy you more beer than you can drink, young
  Winter.'
 'That might be a lot of beer, Fritz.'
 'It's not a trick?' said Esser, his face suddenly darkening.
  'You have my word,' said Alex Horner formally. He clicked his heels.
  'My friend is a Prussian stuffed-shirt,' Pauli told Esser, 'but under
  that shirt there is a goodhearted fellow.'
  'I'll trust you,' said Esser. It seemed a long time since he'd trusted
  anyone very much, but now he wanted to shed the worries of the day and
  forget, forget, forget. Let those know-it-alls of the conunittee continue
  their arguments without him. 'Where shall we drink?' just to be on the
  safe side, he strapped a belt and pistol around his waist. He ran his
  hand over his bristly hair and felt his scalp damp with sweat, then
  plonked his cap back on his head.
  Pauli had his answer ready: 'There's a Kneipe behind the Spittelmarkt:
  Guggenheirner's place. Know it?'
  The choice of venue reassured Fritz Esser. Guggenheimer was a Jew with
  half a dozen children, all of whom attended the university, with varying
  degrees of success. His bar was a student hangout with cheap food and
  strong beer. Ali sorts of odd people went there. It was the sort of place
  that a sailor, a Freikorps; man and a smartly dressed civilian might be
  able to drink togetfier without getting unwelcome attention.

                175
          Nineteen hundred and eighteen

 Alex stole a glance at his friend. Had it all been planned by Pauli? He
 could be devious and cunning: it was a part of his nature that few people
 knew. And yet Pauli was sincere, too; that was what so beguiled Esser.
  'The pay is not important,' said Pauli Winter after several tankards of
  Guggenheimer's best dark beer had been consumed. 'It's the comradeship: men
  you can trust with your life. Good fellows, every one of them. But the
  money is good, too. Every volunteer has a daily basic pay of forty marks,
  and now the government are adding another five. Then tbere's the food: two
  hundred grams of meat and seventy-five grams of butter and a quarter-litre
  of wine. Plenty of beer and cigarettes, too.' He held up his beer. 'In our
  canteen this would cost us almost nothing. But a lot of the men join
  because Freikorps service counts towards their pension. Take you, Fritz,'
  he added, as if taking an example entirely at random. 'You'd be taken into
  the Freikorps at your present naval rank and pay - in fact, you'd become my
  sergeant major, because I'm getting my own company next month - and your
  Freikorps service counts towards your pension. Plus the regular family
  allowance will immediately start again for your parents. flow are they, by
  the way?'
 'My father is not well,' said Fritz Essei absent-mindedly.
  'I'm sorry to hear that,' said Pauli. It was a part of Pauli's charm that
  he could express his genuine sorrow that the 'pig man' was unwell, then
  immediately continue his description of life in the Freikorps, without
  seeming uncaring. 'People who can handle the administration side are
  difficult to find. The storm battalions were not noted for their paperwork.
  But now we can only get pay, allowances, food and all the other supplies we
  need if the office work is properly done. These socialists are all
  bureaucrats, you see; we have to play their game.'
  'Whydo we have to play their game?'Esser inquired. 'I don't trust this
  government.'
 Alex nodded agreement and leaned forward to hear Pauli's reply.
  'For the time being,' said Pauli. 'When the right time comes, Germany will
  have proper leadership.'
 'An emperor?' asked Alex Horner.
  'Perhaps,' said Pauli. 'But somehow I think we've seen the end of the House
  of Hohenzollern. His Highness lacked the qualities of a true Prussian
  soldier-king, and no one who's seen the Crown Prince at close quarters
  would hope he'd be any better.'

               176
          'The damned war's not over'

  'Heartily agreed,' said Alex Horner, and belched. Esser took off his old
  patched jacket and hung it over the back of his chair. His bare arms were
  covered with tattoos: serpents, girls' names and expressions of fidelity
  in elaborate scrollwork.
 'Get more beer,' said Pauli.
  'It's my turn,' said Fritz Esser. He was the oldest of the three men and
  determined to pay his way. He got up and walked to the counter with only
  the slightest unsteadiness.
  With Esser out of earshot, Alex Horner whispered, 'You'll never recruit
  this wretch to your damned Freikorps Graf.' Alex didn't like Captain
  Graf, the diminutive homosexual who ran his private army like some
  medieval war-lord, but he was cautious about voicing such thoughts to
  Pauli who'd become something of an apologist for this strange man.
  'There's not one therv who could take on the job of a sergeant major,'
  said Pauli.
 'Not one where?'
  'In the company that I'll take over next month. Good soldiers, good
  fighters, good comrades, but no skewer upon which I can fix them.'
 'You'll never do it, Pauli. The fellow's a Spartacist.'
  'He'll see reason,' said Pauli complacently. 'Fritz is a sensible
  fellow.'
 'You mad fool. Did you have this in mind right from the start?'
  Before Pauli answered, Esser was back with three foaming steins of beer.
  He slammed them on the table. 'Drink, drink, drink,' he urged. He looked
  round to see who was seated nearby. 'And then there are a couple of
  things you must tell me about this Freikorps business.'

 Fortified with several litres of Guggenheimer's beer, the trio went down
 Leipziger Strasse, visiting various bars, until they turned north along
 Friedrichstrasse, where the nightlife was even more raucous:male and
 female prostitutes mingling with beggars, drunks, and pickpockets, and
 from every side the frantic sounds of recently arrived American jazz.
  Fritz Esser never went back to the Imperial Palace. When, early on that
  Christmas Eve morning, the army's artillery opened fire on the palace,
  Esser didn't even hear the gunfire, for he was in an upstairs room over
  a club behind the Schiffbauerdarmn Theatre, asleep in the arms of a
  half-undressed nightclub hostess.

                177
          Nineteen hundred and eighteen

  As 1918 tottered to a close, Fritz Esser was enrolled in the Freikorps. On
  the other side of the city, Liebknecht joined his Spartakusbund to the
  Independent Socialists and the Revolutionary Shop Stewards, called his new
  political entity the Communist Party of Germany, and began arming his
  supporters.
  Everywhere in Berlin the madness continued: lines of hungry people formed
  outside the bakers' shops, and butchers', too, and stared into expensive
  restaurants, where war profiteers and their gloriously attired women
  gobbled champagne and caviar. On the Western Front the Allies had stopped
  fighting but their naval blockade continued, and thousands of German~ died
  of malnutrition. Throughout Europe the influenza virus decimated the tired
  and hungry population; it brought death to seventeen hundred Berliners in
  a single day.
  Whatever reservations Fritz Esser had had about serving under the command
  of his young friend they soon evaporated as Pauli Winter led his company
  across the rooftops of Wilhelmstrasse despite Spartacist snipers across the
  street. Soon Pauli had repaid any debt he owed Esser for hauling him from
  the sea so long ago. More than once Pauli saved his sergeant major from
  death or injury. Once his strong arms saved Esser from sliding off the
  rain-swept slates into the street below. Esser had followed Graf and the
  others along the ridge of a saddleback roof. It required balance, daring
  and speed, and Fritz Esser, burdened with rifle, bandoliers, and a heavy
  bag of grenades, had none of these in adequate amounts. He slipped on the
  icy ridge tiles, and his rifle went across the slates and down into the
  street far below. As Esser started to fall, Pauli grabbed him by the
  greatcoat collar and held him spread-eagled across the steep roof, while
  men on the roof on the far side of Withelmstrasse fired at him. Only with
  great difficulty was the unfortunately heavyweight Esser dragged to safety.
  Pauli laughed about it. Under fire the clumsy Pauli became another man: not
  just commander of 'Winter Company', he was also the most audacious and
  skilled fighting man in that very formidable unit, Freikorps Graf.
  Once, during the heavy fighting in the centre of the city, the two men met
  briefly with Leutnant Alex Horner. It was during the violent fighting of
  January i i, igig, when Freikorps units battled their way into the Police
  Headquarters on Alexanderplatz, where Spartacist resistance was fierce. It
  was something of a massacre. The defenders' morale was weakening as they
  realized that Liebknecht's communists were not going to win power by force.
  Pauli and Esser

                178
          'The damned war's not over'

 were amongst the first inside the Police Headquarters courtyard. Esser
 lobbed a stick grenade through a downstairs window, and both men scrambled
 into the smoke-filled wreckage; the others followed without hesitation. Now
 the defenders fell back, room by room, floor by floor, but the merciless
 Freikorpskampfer slaughtered everyone they found.
  Alex Horner protested at the slaughter. He took his formal objections to
  Captain Graf. But the Freikorps men were in no mood to listen to
  technicalities from the regular army. They left no one alive.
  The regular army, too, had men who gave no quarter. A few days later an
  informer reported the presence of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Leibknecht in a
  middle-class apartment in Wilmersdorf. The captive pair were taken to the
  Eden Hotel, near the Memorial Church, which the Horse Guards were using as
  their headquarters. After a brutal interrogation they were murdered, and
  with their deaths 'Spartacus week'ended.
  During this respite the Freikorps reformed and refitted, and Lieutenant
  Pauli Winter lost his sergeant major. Fritz Esser had, in his brief service
  with his company, shown only moderate aptitude for infantry tactics, and
  unless Pauli was at his side he didn't have the combat experience or the
  reckless bravery that most of the others showed. But there had been time to
  recognize the administrative skills he'd learned during his naval service.
  Fritz Esser was promoted to be an assistant to the hattalion adjutant.
  Then, just two weeks later, after the adjutant was hospitalized, Lsser was
  made battalion adjutant.
  Whatever extravagant claims are made for the democratic style of the
  Freikorps units, there was strong opposition to making Esser an officer. So
  he became adiiitant with that strange compromise rank that the German army
  invented for such social dilemmas. He was made a Feldwcbcl-Leutnant, so
  that he could do an officer's job with officer's badges and shoul,ter
  straps and officer's pay without being the iocial equal of his pecrs. It
  was an arrangement that made all concerned very satisfied.
  The man that Fritz E~,ser now worked alongside was Captain Georg Graf, and
  he was not an casy man to get along with. Despite first appearances, the
  little Munich-born career officer with big ears, red nose,and unconcealed
  homosexual preferences wasn't a figure of fun to anyone who'd fought
  alongside him, anywhere from Verdun to Alexanderplatz. He wa-., mercurial,
  violent and unforgiving.

               179
          Nineteen hundred and eighteen

  Fritz Esser and Captain Graf - both men difficult and argumentative by
  nature - worked amicably together. Pauli Winter teased Esser that Graf
  had fallen in love with him, because that idea made the unmistakably
  heterosexual Esser nervous. Esser stoically replied that he admired Graf
  for his physical bravery under fire and appreciated the very real concern
  he showed for the men under his command. But, whatever the exact nature
  of the relationship, the mutual regard Esser and Graf showed for each
  other was genuine and lasting. And that was just as well, for
  Feldwebel-Leutnant Esser became Graf s de facto second in Command. When
  Graf was not available, Esser was always consulted. 'What would Captain
  Graf probably want... ?'The question was always phrased in such a way
  that Esser gave an opinion rather than an order, but his underlying
  authority was undisputed, and Graf supported his adjutant's decisions,
  whatever his true feelings may have been.
  Feldwebel-Leutnant Esser's assignment to Headquarters did not mean there
  was any change in the relationship between him and Pauli Winter. They
  were very close. Esser was grateful to Pauli for bringing him into the
  battalion, and though Esser could never replace his brother, Peter, in
  the role of mentor and protector, or Alex Horner as conscience and
  example, Fritz Esser was the most priceless of companions. Fritz could
  be outrageously funny, and he had a sharp eye for the sort of cant and
  humbug that the new socialist government plentifully supplied every day.
  Fritz was not a committed socialist; nor was he a communist or a Marxist.
  And whatever was the political creed that bound the Freikorps men
  together, Fritz Esser had no heartfelt devotion to that, either. Fritz
  Esser was an anarchist by both conviction and nature, and Pauli found his
  anarchistic attitude towards life not only amusing but illuminating and
  instructive, too.
  When Freikorps Graf moved out of Berlin, first to Halle and then to
  Munich, Esser's role as quartermaster, mother superior, slavemaster and
  general factotum earned the respect of the entire battalion. En route
  there was always a hot evening meal ready, a dry place to sleep, and some
  sort of breakfast, too. Every soldier in the battalion had well-repaired
  boots and fifty rounds of ammunition in a bandolier in case there was
  trouble with the local populations, who sometimes preferred their
  communist committees to the freebooting warriors. And ifsometimes they
  had to march too far, then that was because not evcn the amazing Fritz
  could keep all the ancient trucks in good enough repair to transport a
  battalion of men. Besides,

                180
          'The damned war's not (wer'

 soldiers marched - everyone knew thai. Freikorpstruppen liked to march
 and shoot and sleep rough; that w-s why they were in the Freikorps.
 People who didn't like such hardships and the comradeship that went
 with them remained civilians, and all good Freikorpsk5mpfer despised
 civilians of every political creed.

 181
       E1922M
    'Berlin is so far away and I miss you so much'

 The Austrian countryside was bleak and cold, and by five o'clock in the
 afternoon the darkening sky was streaked with the red light of the setting
 sun. Martha Sorn16 and Harald Winter had skated round and round long after
 all the other skaters - villagers mostly; the Viennese did not come this far
 to find ice - had gone.
  She loved the hiss of the blades cutting into the ice, and the way her face
  tingled in the cold wind. She loved the harmony with which they moved
  together, and she enjoyed Harry's arm firmly around her waist as they raced
  across the ice at reckless speed.
  The dinner they were served in the private rooms upstairs at the White
  Horse was simple country food, but there was nothing better than a veal
  stew on a cold winter evening. They had their warm apple strudel, and tiny
  glasses of powerful Schwarzbeer schnapps from the nearby farm, while
  sitting in front of a roaring log fire. The logs were trimmings from the
  orchard, the smoke smelled of the fruit, and the sap still inside the wood
  made the fire crack and bang and throw sparks.
  'Must you go back tomorrow?' she asked. They had been in bed. Now she was
  sitting on the floor by his feet, naked except for an ornate gypsy-style
  shawl that she'd wrapped herself into. He'd made her scrub off all the
  powder, cream, and lipstick. He cared nothing about the new fashions: in
  Harald Winter's world only whores and chorus girls painted their faces.
 'I shouldn't have stayed so long,' said Harald Winter.
  'Why are you selling the bank?' Every time she passed the bank in
  Ringstrasse she felt proud of knowing Harry.
  'Only my share of the bank.' He stared into the fire as if hoping to see a
  bright future there.
 'Why?'
 'It will, make no difference to us, little one. I will still come to

                182
     'Berlin is so far away and I miss you so much'

 Vienna.' He touched her hair gently, and she closed her eyes as he stroked
 her head.
 'But not so often.'
  'I am not rich any more,' said Winter. He was rich, of course, very rich by
  the standards that most people employ to measure wealth. But he could not
  provide Martha with the luxuries - the carriage and servants - that she'd
  once enjoyed, and he felt humiliated by his economies.
  'It doesn't matter,' she said. She turned to look at him by the light of
  the flames. He looked tired and ill, but she knew now that Harald Winter's
  business setbacks affected him in the way that other men are affected by
  infirmities or disease. 'I'll always be here waiting.'
  'I'm setting up a trust fund for you in Switzerland,' he said. 'It will be
  enough to Live comfortably whatever happens.'
 'You are a wonderful man, Harry. What would I do without you?'
  'Many people say things will get even worse. Some of the banks might crash.
  It's better to sell.'
  'Berlin is so far away, Harry, and I miss you so much.' He leaned forward
  and bent over to kiss her. If only it could be like this forever, he
  thought. But, just as quickly, the thought was gone. Harald Winter would
  find life like this unendurable after a week or so, and he was sensible
  enough to know that.

 183
           1924%%
         'Who are those dradfid men?'

 The birthday party that Harald and Veronica Winter put on for their younger
 son, Pauli's twenty-fourth birthday was the first real birthday party he'd
 had since he was a child. Although unsaid, it was his parent's celebration
 ofPauli Winter's first term at university, his return to civilian life. The
 lovely old house was ablaze with lights and noisy with the excited chatter
 of more than fifty guests and a tenpiece dance band. In a grim sort of joke
 that was typically berlinerisch, the invitations were overprinted upon
 biltion-mark banknotes. Back before the war, an unskilled worker in one of
 Harald Winter's factories earned twenty-five marks a week, but the
 staggering inflation of the previous year had seen the value of Germany's
 paper money plunge to a point where one U.S. dollar bought over two and a
 half billion marks. Foreigners came across the border from Holland and
 Czechoslovakia and bought land and mansions with handfuls of hard currency.
 Then finally the madness ended. The Reichsbank issued its new Rentcnul&rks,
 one of which was worth one billion in the old currency. As if in
 celebration, Aschingers, the famous restaurant near the Friedrichstrasse
 railway station, offered one main dish, a glass of beer, a dessert, and as
 many rolls as you cared to eat for just one new mark. Inflation had stopped.
  As the smoke cleared, it was apparent that the middle classes had suffered
  most: in the final few terrible weeks most people's life savings totalled
  not enough to buy a postage stamp. But some Germans had not suffered.
  Harald Winter had almost doubled his fortune. Like many industrialists, he
  was allowed to borrow from the Reichsbank, which, in the manner of most
  government departments, reacted very slowly to the events of the day. Thus,
  even when the Reichsbank was charging its top rate of interest, Harald
  Winter could continue borrowing and repaying at rates far, far below that
  of inflation. And by 1924 the five-million-Reichsmark debt due to his

                194
          'Who are those dreadfid men?'

 father-in-law was nothing like enough to buy a meal in Aschingers. It
 could be renegotiated to almost anything Harald Winter decided.
  But not everyone present at Pauli's birthday party this evening had been
  as fortunate and as astute as Winter. Many of them had had at least a
  part of their money in government securities, and now they were talking
  about the law of December 8, 1923. The socialist government had decided
  that their own debts were to be advantageously revalued - for instance,
  the reparations due to France - but the millions of holders of now
  worthless government securities would not be compensated.
  'By GodV said Fran Wisliceny, who'd come with her daughters and, to Peter
  Winter's indignation, brought her son-in-law Erich Hennig. 'I'm beginning
  to believe that ruffian Hitler is right about the rogues who govern us.'
  Frau Wisliceny had not mellowed with age - a big, handsome, matronly
  woman in an elaborate but decidedly unfashionable Paris gown that she'd
  had since before the war. Frau Wisliceny eschewed the new fashions for
  the sake of which women sacrificed their long hair and exposed their
  legs. Her voice was firm and decisive, and she prided herself that she
  was as well informed as anyone in Berlin and happy to argue about art,
  music, or politics with any man present.
  'Surely you would not wish to be ruled by such a rascal?' said Richard
  Fischer. Foxy Fischer's son, now forty-three years old and running the
  family's steel empire, had left his ageing father in order to flirt with
  Inge until Frau Wisliceny moved into the group. Not that Frau Wisliceny
  would oppose a marriage between the two of them or object to Richard's
  flirting. Richard Fischer was the most eligible of'bachelors, and her
  eldest daughter was getting to an age when to be unmarried was
  noticeable. But Inge had not given up hope of marrying Peter Winter, and
  as long as he remained single she had eyes for no one else.
  'You'd better lower your voice,' Erich Hennig advised. 'That little
  Captain Graf over there is one of Hitler's most notorious strongarm men,
  and the big brute with him is his so-called adjutant.'
  'I'm not frightened to speak my mind,' said Fischer. He, too, was a big
  fellow, and his full beard, the confident manner that his riches
  provided, made him a formidable adversary in any sort of conflict.
  'Hitler will go to prison anyway,' said Frau Wisliceny, in an attempt to
  avoid any friction that might arise between her son-in-law and Fischer.
  'Even the Bavarians won't let him get away with an armed putsch against
  their legally elected government.'

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  'I'm not sure he will,'said Peter Winter. He was tall and slim, with a pale
  complexion that had come from long hours studying his law books. In his
  well-fitting evening suit he was as handsome as any man in the room. He'd
  let his dark hair grow unfashionably long, so that it touched the top of
  his ears. Inge eyed him adoringly. Peter was not the sort. of man every
  girl would want- some said he was an unbending snob, too old-fashioned for
  the fast-moving permissiveness of Berlin in the twenties. But Inge had
  decided that there could be no other man for her, and now that her sister
  Lisl was married ... 'My class in law school went to Munich last week. We
  spent some time with the prosecution people, and they let us see the
  evidence.'
  'But there is nothing to prove,' said Lisl. 'Hitler's guilty. It was an
  attempt to seize power by armed force. It's simply a matter of sentencing
  him.'
  Peter looked at her before replying. Marriage to the awful Hennig obviously
  agreed with her. She looked well and happy and was even more self-confident
  than he remembered. Most of her friends had predicted that she'd be crushed
  by the opinionated, dogmatic, domineering Hennig, but the opposite had
  happened: it was Lisl who made all the decisions, and when it came to
  political opinions Hermig deferred to his beautiful young wife.
  Peter said, 'You only need half an hour in Munich to realize that this is
  no criminal trial, it's more like an election. What jury will send a war
  hero such as General Ludendorff to prison?'
  Lisl replied, 'We're not talking about Ludendorff, who everyone knows is
  only half dotty. We're talking about Hitler, a madman.'
  'I don't know how carefully you follow Hitler's speeches,' Peter told her
  with the dispassionate moderation that he'd learned from his law professor.
  'But I read through some of his speeches. Hitler is being described as "the
  new Messiah" and he cultivates this. He condemns moral decay, corruption,
  and vice and is able to rally round him people with very differing views:
  that is his skill.'
  'I've heard all that tosh,' said Fischer. 'But if you listen to Hitler,
  you'd think that all the vice and corruption in the world are here in
  Berlin.' He stroked his beard and looked to Inge for approval. She smiled
  at him but then turned back to look at Peter.
  'He does,' agreed Peter mildly. 'But that appeals to the Bavarians. Those
  damn southerneis. They like to see Berlin as the base of centralism, the
  home of the Prussian military - which they fear and despise -- and
  Protestant Berliners as the greatest obstacle to their aim of restoring a
  Bavarian kingdom, complete with Catholic monarchy. Hilter skilfully panders
  to all these feelings.'

                186
          'Who are those dreadful men?'

  Fischer said, 'And those Bavarians see Berlin as a place controlled by
  Jewish capitalists. It suits their anti-Semitic nature.'
  The band started playing a Lehir waltz. 'It's a crime not to be dancing,'
  said Frau Wisticeny. 'Inge, is this dance booked?'
 'No, Mama.'
  Frau Wisliceny looked pointedly at Richard Fischer, who immediately asked
  Inge to dance.
  Peter would have asked tier sister Lisl to dance, if only as a way to
  annoy Hennig, but Hennig was too quick for him and whirled his wife away
  onto the dance floor with no more than a curt nod to them.
  Someone invited Frau Wisliceny to dance and, left alone, Peter Winter
  turned to watch two soldiers who were standing near the bar. One of them
  was Fritz Esser, of course. There was no way of avoiding recognition of
  the debt he owed him, but he didn't have to approve of the fellow's
  activities or of the horrid little homosexual who'd come here with him.
  And Peter thought it appalling that the two men should have arrived in
  their comic-opera uniforms. Captain Graf was wearing the modified uniform
  of an army captain. Esser wore a new sort of uniform: brown shirt,
  breeches, boots, and SamBrowne-style leather belt and shoulder strap.
  Both men were members of the uniformed 'army' that the notorious Captain
  Ernst R6hm commanded - under ever-changing titles - as a military arm for
  Hitler"s National Socialist Party. 'Storm troopers', they called
  themselves.
  Peter Winter hated the Nazis almost as much as he hated the communists.
  He distrusted their cavalier use of words such as 'freedom',, 'honour',
  'bread' and 'security'. He believed that only stupid people could define
  the failings and opportunities of this complex world by means of trite
  catchall mottos.
  Deep down he had always hoped that by some miracle he'd wake up and find
  himself back in a well-ordered world run from the Imperial Palace by that
  autocrat Kaiser Wilhelm, who cared nothing for what the Reichstag
  decreed. But, gradually and grudgingly, he'd come to believe that the new
  postwar constitution provided a truly democratic framework by means of
  which Germany would again become the greatest nation in the world.
  Despite his distaste for socialism, Peter Winter was that evening one of
  the very few people in the Winter house - or, indeed, in the whole city,
  - who supported Ebert, the socialist president. Germany must be run by
  the law; that was why he was studying to be a lawyer. The organized
  violence of communists and Nazis was a threat to the

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 law, to the stability of German middle-class society, and therefore to
 everything that Peter held dear.
  So Peter Winter found it difficult to conceal his hostility as he walked
  over to where Captain Graf was talking to Fritz Esser. He hated these men
  not only for what they were but because of their continuing association
  with Pauli. He had a sense of foreboding that made him want to protect his
  younger brother from these unpleasant rascals. At least he'd been able to
  persuade Pauli to leave Graf's wretched Freikorps. Had he remained in
  Munich with them much longer, there was little doubt that Pauli would have
  become a Nazi stormtrooper and been here tonight in one of these ridiculous
  uniforms.
  'Not dancing, gentlemen?' said Peter provocatively. He signalled to the
  waiter for more champagne for his guests. They knew who he was, of course,
  Graf had met him before, and Esser had known him from the time he'd pulled
  him out of the sea off Traverniinde.
  'We are talking business,' said Graf. He had a notebook in his hand, and he
  was wearing steel-rimmed spectacles to read from it.
 'Come along! This is a celebration. Drink! Dance! Have fun!'
  Neither of the two men could decide how to respond to Peter's friendly
  words, but both knew they were being mocked. As he turned his head, Graf's
  spectacle lenses flashed with the reflections of the grand chandeliers, and
  his fierce eyes showed anger.
  When the servant had poured wine for both men, Esser lifted his glass in
  salute. 'Prosit!'he said and grinned broadly. Peter bowed and took his
  leave of them.
  'The place is full of Jews,' Graf told Esser once Peter Winter had gone.
  'And the Winter family have grown rich and fat feasting on the corpses of
  our comrades.'
  'Our time will come,' said Esser. He put a thumb into his belt and stood
  surveying the dancers like a lion tamer.
  Captain Graf was looking at the far end of the room, where four young girls
  in scanty sequined two-piece outfits had suddenly started their dance.
  Captain Graf didn't share Esser's appreciation for halfnaked girls, and he
  turned away with a scowl on his face. 'Jewish, capitalist filth!' said
  Graf.
  Esser grunted and continued to watch the floor show. The girls were Pauli
  Winter's idea- they'd been specially brought over to the house from a
  Revue-Bar. isser recognized the dancers, and the girls knew him. His face
  was known at every drinking place in Berlin, from the Kempi on Leipziger
  Strasse to the sleazy little bars on Invaliden-
  
                188
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 strasse where pimps plied their trade. Esser, unlike Graf, liked girls,
 He drank his champagne. He had long ago learned that everything of which
 Captain Graf disapproved was 'Jewish, capitalist filth', and until now he
 had never dared to contradict his boss. But the past year had seen a
 change in Esser's loyalties. He'd been close enough to the Nazi Party
 leadership to know that Graf s hero - and immediate commander - R6hm was
 not blindly loyal to Hitler. Soon there must come a confrontation between
 R61un's uniformed SA - Sturmabteilung - and the grey-faced civilians of
 the Nazi Party leadership, and Esser had decided that, whether Hitler got
 a prison sentence or not, his future was with 'Der Chef. 'They are damned
 good dancers,' said Esser defiantly and applauded the Revue-Bar girls.
 Captain Graf snorted angrily, stuffed his notebook back in his breast
 pocket, and strutted off towards the upstairs smoking room and bar.
  Pauli Winter saw Graf s tiff with Esser from the dance floor. Pauli was
  transformed. No longer in the haircut that he'd had since entering cadet
  school, which had made his skull into a furry pink billiards ball, his
  blond hair was long enough to fall forward across his eyes. His new
  evening suit - from his father's tailor - fitted close upon his stocky,
  muscular figure, and many female eyes watched him with interest as he
  waltzed with one of the Guggenheimer daughters. His student life had
  revealed a new aspect of Pauli, for he was a sociable young man who
  enjoyed parties, girls, drinks, and dancing more than lectures and books.
  On this account his first exam results had been so poor that he'd not yet
  told his father about them. Sometimes he wondered why he'd let his
  parents persuade him to go to university, but they had been determined
  to get him out of the Freikorps- They were hypocrites. They applauded the
  way the Freikorps fought the communists but deplored Graf and the men who
  did the fighting.
  It was not easy to adapt to the schoolroom again after the violent
  rough-and-tumble of the Freikorps. But Peter was at the law school, too,
  and Peter sorted out all the problems in that rather imperious way that
  he did everything. But even Peter couldn't help Pauli get better marks.
  Company Law was not something that interested Pauli very much but, as
  usual, Pauli wanted to please his parents. He wanted to please everyone:
  he knew it was a foolish weakness, but he too often agreed to whatever
  was required of him rather than be subjected to long arguments.
  When the dance ended, Pauli applauded the band and thanked Hetti
  Guggenheimer. She was a pretty girl - dark hair and large

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 brown eyes with lashes that she too readily fluttered at young men. Hetti
 Guggenheimer was one of Pauli's fellow first-year students. She was studying
 medicine and always got top marks. Hetti's next dance was booked with
 someone else, but she went through the motions of referring to her card
 before excusing herself to Pauli. Pauli didn't mind too much. There were
 lots of pretty girls here, and he was popular with the girls. Although he'd
 never grown as tall as his brother, Pauli had the American good looks of the
 Rensselaer family. His cheekbones set high in a bony skull, large intense
 eyes, and wide smile had made him look like the sort of actor that Hollywood
 casts as a cowboy. And, like the archetypal cowboy, he was soft-spoken,
 easy-tempered, and uncomplaining. Now, taking his leave of Hetti, he went
 back to where he'd left his beer and looked round the room. He saw Esser and
 Graf having what was obviously some sort of argument and watched Graf go
 strutting upstairs angrily. Pauli smoothed his disarrayed hair, tucked in
 his rumpled shirt, and went over to Esser. 'Is everything all right, Fritz?'
 'Everything is just fuie.'
 'I saw Captain Graf come past me. He looked angry.'
 'You know what he's like, Pauli. His anger passes.'
 'You usually get along so well with him.'
  Esser drank champagne and Pauli realized that he was thinking about his
  reply. Finally he said, 'Things have changed since the old days, Pauli.
  After you left us to go to school, the battalion became different.' It was
  nearly a year since Pauli had left them to start the cramming course he'd
  taken before the entrance exam. Ten months of living with his parents. It
  seemed much longer. Much, much longer.
 'Different how?'
  'Too many youngsters. Spiteful kids who never went to the war and want to
  show how tough they are. And I miss Berlin.'
 'And Graf?'
  'He's become too pally with R6hm, and I don't get along with R61un. He's
  too damned ambitious to be a soldier. He plays politics.' Esser looked
  round to be sure he wasn't overheard. 'I went to the Fiffirer and told him
  what was happening.'
 'The FUhrer? Hitler?'
  'I told him that R61un is looking for an opportunity to take over. With the
  Ffthrer in prison, R6hrn could take control of everything.'
 'Perhaps Rbhm will be sentenced to a long prison term, too.'
 'It's possible. But Rbhm has remarkable friends and supporters:

                Igo
          'Who are those dreadful men?'

 in the army, in the Bavarian government, and in the judiciary, too. They all
 know that sooner or later the Nazis will come to power.'
  'So you believe the Nazis will get into power,' said Pauli. The idea of
  that small, cranky organization forming a government seemed unlikely.
  'Good men will be needed then, Pauli. Reliable men like you. When you've
  finished at law school, there will be a good job waiting for you.'
 'With the Nazis?'
  'All the top men are lawyers. I'm even thinking of studying law myself.'
  Pauli slapped him on the shoulder. 'You could do it, Fritz. I would help
  you.'
  He laughed self-consciously. 'I'd need coaching. I left school when I was
  fourteen.'
  'We'll talk about all thai next week, when we have lunch. So you are a
  Nazi?'
  'Yes, I am a secret member. That cunning bastard R61un tries to keep us
  brownshirts separated from the Party. R61un still has dreams of ditching
  Hitler and restoring the monarchy, but the Fiffirer knows what he's doing.'
  'I hope you know what you're doing, Fritz,' said Pauli. He was flattered
  that Esser had taken him into his confidence, for these were days when any
  small disloyalty was enough to get a man murdered.
  11 have a nose for whai's what. I'm not really a soldier; I'm a political
  person. I always have been,' said Esser.
  'What will happen next? Your Hitler is certain to get a long prison
  sentence, isn't he?'
  'We'll bide our time,' said Esser. 'Adolf Hitler is the man Germany needs;
  we must wait for him, however long.'
  'For God's sake, be careful, Fritz. You said Rbhm is a ruthless bastard. If
  he finds out that you're betraying him . . .'
  'I know how to handle him. He's a homosexual, like Graf. There are too many
  homosexuals around R6hm; that's one of the things I don't like about the
  situation in Munich. I treat them all like spoiled brats. One day the
  Fiffirer will deal with them. Until then those pansies need me. R6hrn is
  hiding guns for the army - secret dumps all over the country. More than
  twenty thousand rifles, machine guns ... even artillery.'He grinned.
  'Without my office files they'd never know where anything is to be found.'
 'Alex Homer is here tonight. You should talk to him. One day

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 he'll end up as chief of the General Staff. There might be a time when an
 influential friend in the Reichswehr would be useful to you.' Pauli wanted
 his friends to be friends with one another. It was something of an obsession
 with him.
  Fritz Esser downed his drink. 'Thanks, Pauli. But don't worry about me. I
  know what I'm doing. Sometime we'll go out and get drunk and I'll tell you
  some stories about the Munich putsch that will make your hair curl. It
  nearly came offl I marched alongside the Fijhrer. I was in Odeonsplatz:
  when the police opened fire. The FCihrer was no more than thirty paces from
  me. He was still wearing his evening suit, with a trenchcoat over it. The
  man next to him was shot dead; he pulled the FiIhrer down with him. Captain
  G6ring was wounded. Only LudeDdorff ignored the gunfire and marched on
  through the police cordon. It was a wonderful experience, Pauh.'
 'It was a fiasco,' said Pauli, not unkindly.
 'One day you'll regret you were not with us. We made history.'
  'Have another drink, Fritz. And then let's see if we can find Alex. I want
  to get the two of you together.'
  At that moment Pauli's old friend Leutnant Alex Horner was smoking a cigar
  in Harald Winter's study and being quizzed by Winter and old 'Foxy'
  Fischer. The study had never been refurnished since the Winters first moved
  in. The walls were lined with more or less the same books, and the floor
  covered with the same richly coloured oriental carpet. The same inlaid
  mahogany desk occupied one corner, and the only light came from the
  green-shaded desk lamp. Everything was clean and well cared for, but the
  footstools, hke the polished leather wing armchairs, were scuffed and
  scarred by carelessly held cigars and the marks from drink glasses. The
  study, more than any other room in the house, had escaped unchanged over
  these eventful years, and Harald liked it all just the way it was; even the
  engraved portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm remained on the wall.
  This evening the air here was blue with cigar smoke from the three men. The
  deferential attention the young man was receiving was flattering for him,
  but he was not surprised by it. For Leutnant Homer had recently been able
  to see for himself what was Germany's most closely guarded secret: the
  newly established German military installations in Soviet Russia. Now the
  two men wanted a first-hand account of this astounding political
  development.
  'Did you visit all the factories?'asked Fischer. He was seventy-two years
  old, totally bald and frail, but he would not give up cigars and brandy.

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          'Who are those dreadful men?'

  'I really don't know, but I went to some of the most important ones.'
  Alex's face had become hard and set into the inscrutable expression that
  the German army expected of its elite Prussian Officer Corps. His nose was
  wider, and the duelling scar that had been on his cheek so long had become
  more livid with age.
  'The Junkers airplane factories, near Moscow and Kharkov,' supplied Harald
  Winter, to show he was already well informed. He looked especially sleek.
  He'd spent the earlier part of the evening dancing. Harry enjoyed dancing,
  and tonight he'd made sure of partnering most of the attractive young women
  here: At fifty-four he was still a better dancer than any of the younger
  men, and he was only too pleased to demonstrate it.
  Alex Horner nodded. 'There were twenty-three of us. We travelled
  separately. I didn't, for instance, visit the poison-gas factory - it's in
  a remote part of Samara Oblast - or any of the plants where artillery
  shells are manufactured. Ordnance specialists were sent there, and aviators
  reported on the flying schools. My assignment was to visit the tank
  training schools that we run in cooperation with the Red Army.'
  Fischer crushed his cigar into the ashtray with unnecessary force. 'I don't
  like it, I'll tell you. The idea of showing Bolshevik murderers how to use
  tanks and planes is madness. Those swine will attack us the first chance
  they get.'
  'Your fears are unfounded, Foxy,' said Harald Winter, and smiled at the
  strongly expressed views. 'The Versailles Diktat forbids us to have planes
  and tanks. The Soviets have not signed the Versailles treaty, and their
  cooperation is exactly what we need. The Russians want our expertise and we
  have to have secret testing grounds.' The neatness of the deception pleased
  him.
  'You are being carried away by the prospects,' Fischer told Winter. 'I,
  too, want to get my factories fully working again, but I can't keep a tank
  production line secret.'
  Winter hesitated and a nerve in his cheek twitched. Then he admitted, 'I
  have already itipplied the army with modern planes. All-metal airframes.
  Aluminium alloys, monocoque construction, far advanced over the flimsy old
  wooden contraptions that were used in the war. I'd desperately like to hear
  how they are faring in field conditions in Russia. The army won't let me
  send my technical experts there.' He looked ai Horner, half hoping that he
  would offer to arrange for this, but Horner looked away.
 'Perhaps I'm getting too old,' said Fischer. 'My son Richard

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 thinks as you do: he's obsessed with the designing of all these wretched
 tanks, to the point of neglecting our other clients. I tell him these
 Bolsheviks are treacherous and he laughs at me.'
  'We have a mutual enemy,'said Horner. He blew a smoke ring and admired it.
  The drink and the conspiratory atmosphere had gone to his head.
  'Us and the Russians d The Poles, you mean?' said Fischer. 'I have never
  believed that Poland was a serious threat to us.'
  There was a light tap at the door, and when Winter called 'Come in' his
  wife entered. Time had been kind to Veronica Winter. She had lost little of
  the beauty that had turned men's heads when Winter had first met her. She
  was thinner now than she'd been then, and her face, throat and arms,
  revealed by the striped brown-and-yellow silk-voile evening dress she wore,
  were paler. But the serenity that made her desirable, and the smile that
  was so often on her lips had gone. Veronica was perturbed.
  'Harald!' she said, having indicated that the other two men should not
  stand up for her. 'Who are those dreadful men?'
  'Dreadful men?' said Winter. 'Which men?' He flicked ash from his cigar. It
  was a sign of his irritation at being interrupted.
  In an attempt to calm her Fischer chuckled and said, 'There are so many
  dreadful men in your house tonight, Veronica, that even your husband can't
  keep track of them.'
  'How can you say such a thing, Herr Fischer?' she replied, feigning
  offence. To her husband she said, 'Two men in some sort of uniform.'
  Harald Winter said, 'One of them is a fellow who calls himself "Captain"
  Graf, one of the ruffians who took his private army down to Munich to fight
  the communists.'
 'Pauli's commander?' said Veronica.
  'Yes, until our Pauli had enough sense to stay here and go to school.'
 'And the other?' said Veronica.
  'Is there another?' said Harald. He looked at Fischer, who shrugged, and
  then to Alex Horner.
  Horner answered her. 'His name is Fritz Esser. He's a friend of Pauli's,
  Mrs Winter. Art old friend.'
 'The name is familiar,' she said doubtfully.
  Alex added, 'Back before the war he lived at Travemimde. Pauli recruited
  him into his Freikorps and he stayed with them.'
 'The Essers,' said Harald Winter. 'Yes, I remember the family.

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 They lived in the village, near Mother. It's the little fellow who saved
 the children from drowning - Why do you want to know, darling?'
  'People are asking me who they are, Harald. They hardly look like friends
  of ours. And now this Captain Graf person has gone up to the servants'
  rooms.'
  Winter got to his feet. 'Whatever for?' he asked, but he guessed the
  answer before it came. There were two youngsters working in the house,
  and Captain Graf's homosexual activities had been given considerable
  publicity. Some said that threats of police prosecution on this account
  were the reason he'd taken his battalion from Berlin.
 Veronica blushed. 'I'd rather not say, Harald.'
 'I'll have the blackguard thrown out!'
  Now the other two men were standing. Fischer put a hand out to touch
  Winter's arm. 'Let someone else go, Harry. Graf is a dangerous fellow.'
  'Please allow me to attend to it,' said Alex Horner with studied
  casualness. 'Graf is, I regrei to say, a member of the Officer Corps. His
  behaviour directly concerns me.'
  Harald Winter didn't answer, nor did his wife. It was Fischer who replied
  to Horner's offer. 'Yes, Leutnant Horner. That would be the best way.'

 There wasa certain grim inevitability to the unfortunate business at
 Pauli's birthday party. Inviting Captain Graf to such a party was
 undoubtedly a mistake, but no one had expected him to accept the
 invitation. It was only because Esser was coming that Captain Graf came,
 too.
  Once inside the house, Captain Graf drank his first glass of champagne,
  far too quickly. It was French champagne. Where Harald Winter had got it
  no one knew, but once Graf had downed one he had another and then
  another. Then Esser found the cognac. Captain Graf s storm company had
  captured a French distillery during the 1918 offensives, and the bouquet
  brought happy memories of those exciting days so long ago. And Graf was
  a man as easily affected by memories as by alcohol. By the time he
  spotted the young under-footman and followed him upstairs, he was tight
  enough to miss his footing on the steps more than once.
  CaptainGraf afterwards maintained that he'd only been looking for a
  bedroom in which he could rest for an hour, but when Hauser -Harald
  Winter's longtime valet and general factotum - stopped Graf from entering
  a servant's room on the second floor, Captain Graf stabbed Hauser in the
  chesi with a folding knife.

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  Hauser -- in his mid-forties and gassed in the war - shouted and collapsed,
  bleeding profusely. One of the chambermaids heard the scuffle! and found
  Hauser unconscious in a pool of blood. She screamed after Captain Graf, who
  was by then running down the back staircase with the bloody knife still in
  his hand.
  It was Leutnant Alex Horner who intercepted Graf. He knew the house from
  his many visits there, and guessed Graf s route of escape.
  'Captain Graf? I believe - 'Graf lunged at Homer with the knife, and Horner
  avoided the blade so narrowly that its tip slashed the front of his dinner
  jacket.
  But Alex Horner was not the dressmaker's dummy that Graf mistook him for.
  His years at the front with Pauli and the vicious trench raids that
  Leutnant Brand had repeatedly assigned him to had produced reactions that
  were as instinctive as they were effective.
  Horner swung aside and, as Graf completed his unsuccessful knife thrust
  aimed a powerful blow at the captain's head. It sent him reeling, but Graf
  was a fighter, too. He recovered his balance and lunged again, so that Alex
  had to retreat up the narrow servants' corridor to avoid the slashes aimed
  at him. Graf grinned, but it was a drunken grin, and it encouraged Alex to
  take a chance. He kicked hard and high, knocking the knife aside. Horner
  grabbed the knife, and now it was Graf's turn to flee.
  Graffound his way down the servants' stairs, through the pantry, and to the
  tradesmen's entrance at the rear, and slarnmed the heavy door behind him.
  The wooden frame had swollen with the damp of winter, and by the time Alex
  had wrenched it open, run through the yard, and reached the street, there
  was no sign of Graf except some footprints in the newly fallen snow.
  Alex: Horner stopped and caught his breath. He knew enough about fighting
  to know when to stop. He looked up the moonlit street; there were coaches
  waiting to collect guests, their coachmen huddled against the cold night,
  faces lit by glowing cigarettes, the breath of the horses making clouds of
  white vapour. It was very cold, as only Berlin can be, with a few
  snowflakes drifting in the wind and a film of ice on everything. The city
  was silent, and yet it was not the empty stillness of the countryside; it
  was the brooding quiet of a crowded, sleeping city. From somewhere nearby
  came the sound of a powerful motorcar engine starting, and the squeal of
  tyres. That would be Graf; the fellow was often to be seen in his big
  motorcar.
  Alex reached into his pocket for a cigarette and stood there on the street
  smoking as he thought about what had happened. Thank God,

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          'Who are those dreadful men?'

 Graf had had plenty to drink - he'd have been a formidable adversary
 sober. Better to forget the whole business, he decided. Graf and his ilk
 had friends in high places and in the Bendlerblock the army bureaucrats
 were now referring to Rdhm's storm troops as the 'Black Reichswehr',
 treating them as a secret army reserve. Testifying against Graf might well
 mar his career prospects. Any last delusion that the army kept out of
 politics had long since gone. Getting promoted in this curious postwar
 army was like walking through a minefield.
  By the time Alex Horner had finished his cigarette and returned to the
  party, it was almost as if nothing untoward had occurred. Hauser was in
  bed and being attended by a doctor, the bloodstains had been scrubbed
  from the carpet, the band was playing, and the guests were dancing as if
  nothing had happened. In fact, many of the guests were not aware of the
  murderous scuffle on the back stairs.
  Peter Winter was dancing with a glorious girl in a decorative evening
  dress of a quality that was seldom seen in Germany in these austere
  times. The girl had brazenly approached Peter and asked him to dance. 'I
  hear you're a good dancer, Herr Winter. How would you like to prove it
  to me?'
  Her German was not good. The grammar was adequate, but the accent was
  outlandish. Not the hard consonantal growl of the Hungarian or the Czech,
  this was a strange, flat drawling accent of a sort he couldn't for a
  moment distinguish.
 'Are you Austrian?' Peter asked.
  She laughed in a way that was almost unladylike. 'You flatterer! I heard
  you were a ladies' man, Peter Winter, and now I declare it's true. You
  know my German is not good enough for me to be Austrian. Is that what you
  ;ay to any girl you encounter with a weird accent you don't recognize?'
  Peter blushed. It was exactly what he said to any girl whose accent he
  couldn't place. 'Of course not,' he muttered.
  'I'm from California, U.S.A.,' she said. 'We're almost fan-Lily. Your
  mother was at school with my aunt.'
 'That's not farnily,' said Peter.
  She laughed. 'You Germans all have such a wonderful sense of humour.'But
  Peter was not amused to be the butt of her joke. 'Well,' she said,
  stretching her long, pale arm towards him, 'aren't you going to ask me
  to dance?'
  Peter clicked his heels and bowed formally. She laughed again. Peter felt
  confused, almost panic-stricken, and this was a strange,

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 new experience for him. He wanted to flee but he couldn't. He was afraid
 of this girl, afraid that she would think him a fool. He wanted her to
 like him and respect him, and that, of course, is how love first strikes
 the unwary.
  'Yes, you dance quite well,' she said as they stepped out onto the dance
  floor to the smooth romantic chords of 'Poor Butterfly'. Her name was
  Lottie Danziger and her father owned two hotels, three movie theatres,
  and some orange groves in California. She wore the most attention-getting
  evening dress of anyone there. It had a tubelike shape that deprived her
  of breasts and bottom. It was short and sleeveless, and its bodice was
  embroidered with bugle beads and imitation baroque pearls in the sort of
  Egyptian motif that had been all the rage since Howard Carter's amazing
  discoveries in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. The trouble was that the
  beadwork was so heavy that it made Lottie want to sit down, and so
  fragile that she was frightened of doing so.
  Lottie was like no other woman that Peter Winter had ever met. She was
  not like the German girls he'd known, or even like any of the Rensselaer
  family. She was beautiful, with pale skin and naturally wavy jet-black
  hair, cut very short in a style that was new to Berlin, not like the
  short hairstyles that were necessary to get the close-fitting cloche hats
  on, but bobbed almost like a man's. She had dark, wicked eyes and a mouth
  that was perhaps a little too big, and very white, even teeth that
  flashed when she smiled. And she smiled a lot. Not the polite,
  tight-lipped smiles that well-bred German girls were taught, but big
  open-mouthed laughs that were infectious: Peter found himself laughing,
  too. But above all Lottie was intense; she was a fountain of energy, so
  that everything she did, from dancing to telling jokes about the young
  men she'd encountered on the ocean liner, was uniquely wonderful, and
  Peter was beguiled by every movement she made.
  'But I have a chaperon, darling. We couldn't possibly go without her.'
  It was her crazy transatlantic style to call Peter 'darling' right from
  the firit moment, but her flippant use of the word made it no less
  tantalizing. Every suggestion he made for seeing her again was met with
  some wretched rule about her chaperon. She was playing with him: they
  both knew that she could meet with him alone if she really wanted to, and
  it was this that put an extra edge on their exchanges. She was so
  desirable that his need for her pushed all other thoughts and aspirations
  out of his head.
 'But you don't look like a Rensselaer,' she said, having for a

                198
          'Who are those dreadful men?'

 moment silenced his attempts to arrange another meeting. She swung her
 head back to see him better and cocked it on one side, so that her dark,
 wavy hair shone in the lights. 'No, you don't look like a Rensselaer at
 all.'
  She was teasing him, of course, but he readily joined her game. 'And what
  do the Rensselaers look like?'
  'Gorgeous. You have only to look at your mother to know that. The
  Rensselaers are the most beautiful family in the whole of New York. Why,
  when your uncle Glenn came back from the war he must have been getting
  on for forty years old, and yet there wasn't a girl in the city who
  didn't dream of capturing him. The groans and gnashing of teeth when he
  married were to be heard from Hoboken to Hollywood. Your uncle Glenn came
  here just after the war, didn't he?'
  'He was an Air Corps major attached to the Armistice Commission. He
  wanted Mother to go back to New York, but Father was against it.'
 'Why?'
  'He said it would look bad. All through the war he'd been saying that
  Mother was at heart a German. That was how he prevented her from being
  interned. How would it look, he said, if when the Allies won she went
  running back to America?'
  'Her parents are too old to travel, and they'd give anything to see her
  again.'
 'Papa was adamant.'
 'Do all German families obey Father so readily?'
 'I don't know,' said Peter.
  'In America your father would find life more difficult. You should have
  heard what my father said when I first told them I was coming to Europe.'
 'What did he say?'
  'He cut me off without a penny, darting,' she said with a laugh. 'But
  eventually he came around.' She hummed the melody: ' "Poor Butterfly",
  it's such a beautiful tune, isn't it? I never hear it but I think of the
  war: all those poor butterflies that never came back.'
  'Yes,' he said without being sure that he understood. Until now he'd not
  liked Americans, not the Rensselaers, not President Wilson, not any of
  them. They were not easy to understand. But this one -with her hair
  bobbed almost like a man's, and the fringe that came down to her eyebrows
  - was captivating. As he swung her past a huge arrangement of fresh-cut
  flowers, she extended her hand so that the fingertips brushed the blooms.
  It was a schoolgirl's gesture - she had

                I"
         Nineteen hundred and m~enty-four

 to show the world how happy she was. Perhaps an Americans were like that:
 they were not good at secrecy, they had to demonstrate their emotions.
  They danced on until they passed Inge Wisliceny dancing with Richard
  Fischer. Inge looked especially beautiful tonight. Long dresses and deep
  necklines were becoming on her. Lottie let go of Peter's hand to wave to
  her. Inge smiled sadly as they whirled past and disappeared. 'And where is
  your uncle Glenn now?' she asked.
  'Heaven knows. Somewhere in Europe. Every few weeks we get a postcard from
  him. He visits now and again and he's always sending gifts of food. He
  thinks we're starving.'
  'Many Germans are starving,' Lottie reminded him. 'But Glenn was always
  generous. He was my favourite man. I was eighteen when he got married. I
  cried to think I'd lost him. I went to the East Coast just to be a
  bridesmaid. Handsome, clever and brave.'
  'And rich, too,' said Peter sardonically. He was getting rather fed up with
  this eulogy to Glenn Rensselaer.
  'Not your uncle Glenn. He cares nothing for money, but his father is rich,
  of course.'
  'My grandfather, you mean; yes, he got rich from the war,' said Peter.
  'They say that one out of every ten trucks the American army used came from
  a Rensselaer factory.'
  'You're not going to be one of those boring people who want to blame the
  war on war profiteers.'
  'So many people died,' said Peter. 'It's obscene to think that the fighting
  made anyone rich.'
  'So what would you prefer?' she said. 'That the government own everything,
  make everything, and decide how much money each and every citizen
  deserves?'
 'It might be better.'
  'You'd better stay away from politics, Peter Winter. No one will believe
  that you could bL so dumm as to want to deliver yourself to the
  politicians.'
  'Yes. Long, long ago my brother, Pauli, told me more or less the same
  thing.'
  There was something touching about Peter Winter when he admitted to his
  shortcomings. 'You're adorable,' she said and brushed her lips across his
  cheek. He caught a whiff of her perfume. 'Why are you staring at me?' he
  asked.
  'I know you so well from your photographs. Your grandmother has pictures of
  you everywhere in their house in New York. And in

                200
          'Who are those dreadfid men?'

 the room where I practised piano there is a photo of you at the keyboard.
 You must have been about ten or twelve. They told me you practised three
 hours every day. Is it true?'
 'I've given up the piano. I haven't touched a piano for years.'
 'But why?'
 'My hand was injured.'
  'Where? Show me.' She pulled his hand round into view. 'That? Why that's
  nothing. How can that make any difference to a real musician?'
  'I can't play Bach with a fingertip missing.' For the first time she heard
  real anger in his voice, and she was sorry for him.
  'Don't be so arrogant. Perhaps it will prevent your becoming a professional
  pianist, but how can you not play? You must love music. Or don't you?'
 'I love music.'
  'Of course you do. Now, tomorrow you will visit me and I will play some
  records for you. Do you like jazz music?'
 'It's all right.'
  'If you think it's only all right, then you haven't heard any. Tomorrow
  you'll hear some of the best jazz music on records. I brought them from New
  York with me. You'll come? I'm staying with the Wislicenys.'
  'I know. Yes, I'd be honoured.' Listening to jazz music was a small price
  to pay for being alone in her room with this wonderful girl.
  'The really great jazz is not on records. You should hear it in Harlem.
  Although you have to go to the black people's brothels in Memphis or New
  Orleans to hear the real thing.'
  Peter Winter turned his head away so that she didn't see his embarrassment.
  Even in this degenerate, wide-open city of Berlin one didn't expect
  well-brought-up young ladies to know what a brothel was, let alone to
  mention it in conversation with a man.
 'Are you looking for someone?' she asked.
 'My brother.' It was not true, but it would do.
 'Your father sent for him. I was there. Is something wrong?'
 'Pauli invited some strange people.'
 'Sure, but it's his show.'
  'His birthday? Yes, but sometimes one's friends do not mix well with
  family.'
 'Will he get told off?'
  'He'll get round it. Pauli can charm his way out of anything,' said Peter.

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 'Do I hear a note of envy?'
  'No.' Peter smiled. How could he ever envy Pauli, except sometimes for
  the way that his parents indulged him? 'He's always getting into the sort
  of scrapes that test his charm to the very limit. Goodness knows how
  he'll ever pass his law finals.'
 'I can't imagine your brother, Pauli, as a lawyer.'
 'And what about me?'
 'Easily ... a trial lawyer, perhaps. You have the style for that.'
 'And Pauli doesn't?'
  She was cautious. Peter's readiness to defend his brother against any
  sort of criticism was something of which the Wisliceny girls had already
  told her. 'Is there any need for him to do anything? Isn't it enough that
  he'll inherit half the Winter fortune and keep this fine old house going
  while you run the business?'
  Peter smiled grimly. 'Father would have something to say about that.
  Father is a man of the Kaiserzeit. So, I suppose, am U
 'Yes, you are.'
 'And you don't object to us formal, humourless Teutons?'
  'Object? Goodness, what could I object to? I'm not going to marry and
  settle down here. I'm just a tourist.'
  He hastily thought of something to say. 'Pauli's not a fool. He's clever,
  and as brave as a lion.'
  'Poor butterfly . . .'she sang softly as they danced. She knew the words,
  and her soft, low, murmuring voice was bewitching.

            'Keep your money'

 Pauli loved and feared his father, but now the time had come for him to
 speak up for himself or be crushed by his father's personality. He looked
 at the picture of the Kaiser that hung on the wall, and then he caught his
 breath and turned on his father. 'You pretend it's a party for me, but who
 are invited to your grand house? Your rich friends and the people you want
 to impress, that's who. Do you know what I think about your friends and
 your party... F He stopped. His mother's face had turned pale, and there
 was a look of such anguish there that he could not bear to hurt her more.
 Through the door he could hear the band playing 'Poor Butterfly'. It took
 him back to the first day of the 19x8 offensive - the captured British
 battery, the tinny gramophone.
 'Go on,' said Harald Winter calmly. Deeply hurt by his son's

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            'Keep your money'

 outburst, he couldn't repress a secret feeling of satisfaction that Veronica
 was present to see his predictions come true. For Harald more than once had
 said that Pauli was an ungrateful wretch. It was his terrible experiences in
 the war, of course. Harald Winter had always been quick to explain the
 faults of those around him. Pauli had been through all sorts of hell, and
 that had affected him. Otherwise the boy would have been pleased to have
 such a lavish celebration held in his hortour. As for Pauli's complaint that
 most of the people there were friends of his parents rather than his own
 friends, he should have the sense to understand that this was his chance to
 get reacquainted with people who matter. And, anyway, a formal dinner of
 this scale was not something that his Freikorps rowdies, or his noisy,
 loosc-living student friends, would appreciate. judging by what Winter heard
 at his club, the whole party would have become an orgy inside ten minutes.
  Harald Winter told his son, 'Captain Graf was invited at your insistence,
  as [ understand it. How do you explain his disgraceful criminal conduct?'
  'I foUght alongside Graj, and many others like him. They fought
  thecommunists, and are still fightingthem, to keep Germany safe for you and
  others like you. Who are you to sit in judgement on him? What did you do in
  the war except make nioney?'
  'I haven't noticed that you decline the chance to spend a portion of it.
  You have a generous allowance, a motorcycle ... your college fees, books,
  you run up bills at my tailor.' Harald stopped, choked with indignation and
  anger.
 'Keep your money. . . '
  'No, Pauli, no. Say nothing that you'll regret tomorrow,' his mother
  pleaded.
  'What loyalty do you show to your friends?' persisted Pauli. 'Tonight
  you've invited all your aristocratic Russian refugee friends: princes,
  dukes and duchesses, and even that old fool who claims to be a nephew of
  the Tsar. Do they know that aircraft built in your factories are helping to
  train the Red Army that kicked them off their grand estates?'
  'The army don't ask rn~ advice about where to use their aircraft,' said
  Harald Winter calmly.
  'I can't continue living in this house,' said Pauli. 'I should never have
  moved back here. It's stifling, constricting, like a prison, like a
  museum." To his mother he said softly, 'It's better that I go, Mama: We
  live in such different worlds. You hate my friends and I have grown to hate
  your values '

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  'Decency and respect? What values are you talking about?' said Harald
  Winter. 'Poor Hauser was stabbed by that madman Graf. Your friend Esser has
  drunk so much that he vomited on the morning-room carpet and knocked over
  a caseful of chinaware. How dare you tell me that you hate my friends and
  my values?'
  Pauli shrugged. It was always like this when he was dragged into a row; he
  found himself arguing to support issues in which he didn't believe. He
  loved Hauser and despised Graf, but that didn't change the fact that his
  father's world was an ancient, alien place from which he must escape. 'I'm
  sorry, Papa. Forgive me, but it's better that I leave. I will go to Hamburg
  or Munich or somewhere I can start again. I would never have got through my
  finals anyway. I am too stupid to study the law. But Peter will fulfil your
  hopes and expectations.'
 'Pauli . . .' said his mother.
  'Let him go,'said Harald Winter. 'He'll be back when the money runs out.
  I've heard it all before. Let him discover what it's like to be a penniless
  begger in these terrible times. He'll be back knocking at the door before
  the month is out.'
  Veronica said nothing. She did not believe that Pauli would come back
  begging for his father's help. And, in fact, neither did his father.

 In the event, Pauli did move his effects from the house, but he didn't go to
 Hamburg or Munich. He moved into a room in the nearby district of Wedding in
 a boardinghouse run by a war widow, an intimate friend of Fritz Esser. Pauli
 declined to take any more payments from his father, but he did not give up
 his law studies.
  It was Peter who spent hours pleading his brother's case. It was Peter who
  reminded his father of the terrible time Pauli had had in the war, and
  Peter who conspired with his mother so that the approaches were made when
  Harald was in a good mood.
  Although Pauli took no more money from his father, his brother, Peter,
  transferred money to his bank account each month. Pauli's parents accepted
  this covert financial arrangement, and honour was satisfied. Pauli was
  happy to feel that he wasn't accepting money from his father, while his
  father was happy to know that in fact he was. And, as Harald Winter
  remarked to his wife, he didn't want Pauli to be driven to such a state of
  penury that he sold that house on the Obersalzberg.
 Most important, Pauli got permission from the university to

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            'Keep your money'

 switch, starting the following term, from company law to criminal law. It
 was, a study that Pauli found immediately interesting and relevant, To
 everyone's surprise, not least to Pauli's, he caught up quickly with his
 fellow students and came fifth from the top in his exams.
  Coaching Fritz Esser in this subject was less successful, although with
  a great deal of effort Fritz got through his interim exams before
  abandoning his studies. One day, he promised, he'd go back and get his
  law degree. But meanwhile he'd become a full-time paid official of the
  Nazi Party and wholly occupied with politics.
  Soon after Pauli left home, his uncle Glenn Rensselaer found his shabby
  lodging. Glenn was working for some American officemachinery company that
  had its main agency in Leipzig. He came often to Berlin and always
  brought Pauli presents. Pauli Red Glenn; he liked the way he came up to
  the top-floor garret room and did not stare around at the cracked I ino,
  the newspaper pasted on the broken windowpanes to provide a modicum of
  privacy, the chamberpot under the bed, or the unshaded Light bulb. Glenn
  seemed perfectly at home in the rat-infested tenement. The occasion of
  his arrival was usually marked by Glenn's presenting the landlady and
  certain other tenants with bottles of schnapps. Glenn said he got them
  cheap, but Pauli knew he paid full price. at the shop round the comer.
  Glenn was like that.
  When Pauli passed his final exams, it was Glenn who persuaded Harald to
  attend the ceremony, and Glenn who arranged dinner for twenty-four people
  at Medvedj, a smart restaurant on Bayreuther Strasse, and footed the bill
  for blinis and caviar, borscht and kulibiaki, a gypsy trio, and all the
  trimmings in this fashionable restaurant -where Berlin's Russian exiles
  Liked to go when they could afford it. And when Glenn asked so casually
  what Pauli would do next, and Pauli gave a long, involved explanation
  about a company that had offered to provide him with an office and
  secretarial help on condition that he do some legal work for them,
  Glenn's congratulations sounded warm and sincere. But Glenn Rensselaer
  was no fool, and he guessed just as quickly as did Peter and Harald
  Winter that the 'company' that was to play fairy godmother was the Nazi
  Party, and that Pauli was going to be defending some of the worst thugs
  involved in the streetfighting, assaults, and murders that had become a
  regular part of the German political scene.
  When, the following October, Peter talked about becoming engaged to
  Lottic Danziger, Glenn Rensselaer gave Lottie a jade

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         Nineteen hundred and twenty-four

 brooch bearing Peter's initials on the gold setting and gave Peter a watch
 engraved with the date of their intended engagement party. 'Now,' Glenn
 Rensselaer told them both, 'you'll have to go ahead.' And they did. It was
 another big party, this time at the Wisliceny house. Lottie's parents did
 not come. They had long before decided that Lottie was going to marry the
 eldest son of a West Coast oil tycoon, and they were angry to think of
 Lottie's marrying Peter Winter, a German. 'Not so angry as I am,'said Harald
 Winter to his wife the night he first heard the news: and many many times
 afterwards. 'I don't know what appals me more,' he said, 'the thought of him
 married to an American or to a Jew.'
  His wife did not take this insult personally. During the war she had grown
  used to hearing her countrymen denigrated and insulted. Calmly she said,
  'How can you say that, when the Fischers are such close friends?'
 'The Fischers are different.'
  'And Peter and Lottie plan to live in Germany. Think of her poor parents -
  six thousand miles away - they are losing her forever.' It was an
  expression of Veronica's guilt. Now, as her father grew old, she thought
  about him more and more.
  Harald Winter grunted. Hefelt not at all grateful to fate or to the girl.
  Of course they would remain in Germany. Peter hadn't taken complete leave
  of his senses, thank God.

 2o6
       511925
      'You don't ham to be a mathematician'

 'Explain?' said Glenn Rensselaer. 'I can't explain it any better than I have
 there in the written report.' The bald-headed young American behind the desk
 looked at him blankly. Glenn Rensselaer went on: 'I guess you mean describe
 it in terms of its U.S. equivalents. Well, I can't do that, either. These
 Freikorps groups are just bands of armed men in makeshift uniforms. Usually
 their commanders are captains or majors, sometimes a colonel, and, rarely,
 a sergeant. They take their orders from whoever pays them, and sometimes
 they don't even obey their paymasters. Some of the officers behave like
 gangsters; some of the tankers are professional criminals. But some of these
 men are patriots and idealists. It's impossible to generalize about the
 Freikorps except to say - thank God - there is nothing in the U.S. that I
 can compare them to.'
  The man behind the desk still said nothing. Glenn Rensselaer looked round
  the gloomy little upstairs room on Washington's K Street. Ancient floral
  wallpaper, an old desk, some dented filing cabinets, a worn carpet, and in
  the corner a large brass spitoon, brightly polished. So this was the U.S.
  State Department's idea of a suitable office for its 'research and
  intelligence subsection'. Was it secrecy, parsimony, or neglect?
  'On the other hand,' said Glenn Rensselaer, more to break the silence than
  because he felt the man behind the desk was interested, 'for a lot of
  people Germany right now is where everything is happening. The movies,
  legitimate theatre, the opera, popular music, light opera, orchestral
  music, science - from atomic physics to psychology - architecture,
  industrial design, painting ... every damn thing.' He stubbed out his
  cigarette and added, 'Is all this boring you? I have the feeling that there
  are other things you'd rather be doing."
 'Not at all,' said the bald young official. 'I find everything you tell

                207
         Nineteen hundred and twenty-five

 me fascinating. But I'm likely to be the only person in the whole State
 Department who will read your report all through.'
 'Is that so?'
  'The U.S. has lost interest in Europe, except to count how many battleships
  the British are building under the terms of the new treaty.'
 'You're talking in riddles.'
  'Forgive me: I don't mean to. What I should have said is that right now no
  one wants to talk about anything but Japanese naval strength. You must be
  familiar With the terms of the 1922 conference - a ratio of five British
  capital ships and three Japanese capital ships for five of ours. You don't
  have to be a mathematician to see that under the terms of that treaty the
  combined naval strength of the Japs and the Brits would gun us off both
  oceans.'
  'You don't have to be a mathematician,' agreed Glenn Rensselaer. 'You just
  have to be nuts.'
  Again came the inscrutable look. No reply. Perhaps Glenn should not have
  come here wearing his old jacket and flannels with his brightly patterned
  bow tie and knitted pullover. The man behind the desk was in a
  tight-fitting suit with a stiff collar. Glen had forgotten what it was like
  in Washington, D.C.
  Glenn persisted. 'You're not seriously suggesting that we're likely to get
  into a fight against the British, are you?'
  'It's our job to take into account even the most unlikely eventuality, Mr
  Rensselaer.'
  'You guys are out of your minds. If we tangled with the Japs, the British
  would be alongside us.' He got to his feet and the man got up, too.
  'I'm sure you're right, Mr Rensselaer,' said the rilan in a voice that
  betrayed nothing of his thoughts. 'Anyway, it was good of you to come. We
  don't get much first-hand news these days.'

 Glenn Rensselaer was glad to get back to his parents' house in New York. It
 was home to him, for his travels abroad made it convenient and convivial for
 his wife to share his father's large mansion. She got along well with Cy
 Rensselaer's second wife, Dot, and now that Dot's three sons had grown up
 and left home, she was company for the older woman.
  When he returned from his trip to Washington, his father asked him about
  it, but Glenn was unforthcoming. Had he explained his reception at the
  bureaucrats' 'secret' office, his father would

                2o8
       'You don't have to be a mathematician'

 probably have taken exception to the description. The Republican Party
 firmly controlled House and Senate. Calvin Coolidge was in the White House.
 The old man preferred to believe that the men in Washington knew what they
 were doing. It was a point of view difficult to sustain after a trip to the
 capital, which was perhaps why his father never went there.
  So Glenn talked to his fathL - about Germany. 'Since the war you see on the
  streets this large root -ss proletariat,' Glenn told his father. 'Mostly
  from the East: Poles, Czechs, Russians, Hungarians, Rumanians, gypsies,
  dispossessed smallholders and peasants, factory workers, and God knows who.
  In order to blame these badly dressed, incoherent outsiders for every
  misfortune from petty crime to factory closures and job losses, a name was
  required. So the Germans have decided to call them- "Jews".'
 Don't make jokes about Jews, son. I can't abide it, never could.'
  I'm not joking. Anti-Semitism is everywhere; you smell it in the air.'
 :That's not just in Europe, Glenn.'
  No, but in France and England and here in the U.S. antiSemitism is a form
  of envy. It's mostly directed at the rich, clever and successful. The
  anti-Semite depicts the Jew as a man with a diamond tie pin, in a big
  automobile, smoking a cigar, and coming to collect the profits from his
  factory. In Germany they have that anti-Semitic envy, too. And it's
  especially strong there because the Jew plays a vital part in the cultural
  life of Germany. The movies, the theatre, publishing and the art world are
  conspicuously dominated by Jews. But there's this other sort of
  anti-Semitism, too.'
 'Does it really matter?'
  His father felt uncomfortable, but Glenn continued: 'It's a
  downward-looking anti-Semitism. I'm talking about the fear of any
  strange-looking, penniless itinerant. Now, add that to the envy and you've
  got an explosive mixture. That's why Germany is unique. This double
  anti-Semitism comes from Germany's geographical position; that's why it's
  different from anything you find in other countries. And let me tell you
  that there are a hell of a lot of German politicians who know exactly how
  to stir up that mixture.'
  'Is it the Nazis you're talking about? Only last week there were pictures
  in one of the weeklies.'
  'There are others, but the Nazis are the most dedicated and the most
  dangerous. This fellow Hitler has renewed strength since being in prison.
  Politically it's the best thing that could have happened to

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 him. lie's a sort of romantic, and he understand that blend of
 sentimentality and cruelty that is uniquely German. He knows how to appeal
 to a lot of different Bavarian malcontents. Want to restore the monarchy?
 Hitler's your man. Feel the nice Bavarian Catholics are ill-treated by
 nasty Prussian Protestants? Hitler. Want to hear that the bureaucrats it)
 Berlin are the cause of Bavaria's troubles? Want to hear that the General
 Staff - Protestant every one - lost the war? Lost your job? A Jew took it
 from you. Your factory went out of business? A Jewish boss did it and made
 a profit on the deal. Socialists organizing a strike you don't like?
 Communists fighting in the street? Everyone knows Moscow is run by Jews.
 You don't agree?,rhen either you are being duped or you are a Jew and a
 part of the conspiracy.'
  'That might sound good to voters in Bavaria, but it won't get Mister
  Hitler very far if lie wants to get into the national government. The way
  I hear it, Hitler is virtually unknown outside of Bavaria, and my guess
  is he'll stay that way.'
  'You don't know this guy. Don't imagine he has any kind of written
  manifesto that you can challenge him on. He's all things to all men. He
  trades on emotions, not facts. When he goes for the Reichstag he'll have
  a fresh set of answers ready. This guy is dynamite. We had an office in
  Munich. I've heard him speaking at his meetings. He holds people
  spellbound. He's full of spite, brimful of hatred and contempt There is
  nothing constructive in what he says: just threats of what he'll do to
  the sort of people he blames for all the troubles.'
  'All politicians are negative,' said his father. 'A promise to punish the
  fortunate and soak the rich is always good for a few votes.'
  'But in Germany too many people are ready to believe in the quick and
  easy solution.'
  'It will all pass,' said his father. There was a note of weariness
  detectable in his voice. Ilis father was still so energetic that it was
  difficult to believe he was seventy-four years old, except when now and
  again the mask slipped. 'It's the legacy of war - defeat, disappointment,
  hunger. It will pass.'
  'I wish I could believe you, Dad. But the fact is that this poison is
  more prevalent among students than among any other sector of the
  population. Students - university students for the most part - fellows
  who were too young to go to the war, are more bitter about the defeat
  than the soldiers who were in the fighting. Veterans know in their hearts
  that the Germans were licked on the battlefield; the kids who

                210
       'You don't have to be a mathematician'

 weren't there like to believe all that "stab-in-the-back" stuff. And the
 kids are the ones who get violent. They are full of energy and fun of hate.
 They are looking for a cause, and Hitler will provide it for them.'
  'For God's sake, don't tell the Danzigers any of this, Glenn. Lottie's
  father is worried sick at the idea of her remaining in Berlin. He always
  calls me up when he comes into town, and we usually lunch at the club. Some
  idiot friend of his sent him clippings from German newspapers. He had his
  office translate the stuff. I don't know what it said, but he's darned
  worried. So don't tell him, huh?'
 'The club? Is Mr Danziger now a member of the club?'
  His father looked flustered. 'Well, no. They still have that stupid rule
  about members ... but taking a Jew in as a guest is okay.'
  Glenn could think of nothing to say. They sat in silence for a few moments.
  Outside there was the continual sound of motorcars, it was hard to believe
  that when he was a child the house had been so quiet.
  'He's letting some little film company build movie lots and stages on his
  orange groves.'
 Danziger?' said Glenn.
  just a handful of cash and twenty-five per cent of the movie company.'
 'Is it a good deal?'
  'He's gone soft in the head, if you ask me. Twenty-five per cent of nothing
  is nothing. just like ninety-nine per cent of nothing is nothing. And
  what's a movie company got in assets except its real estate?'
 'Did you tell Danziger that?'
  'Contracts, he says. Contracts with actors. Can you imagine how that would
  show on the auditors' books?'
 'Movies are doing okay, aren't they?'
  'Do you know how long it will take him to get real quality fruit growing
  there again?'
 'Danziger can afford a few mistakes,' said Glenn Rensselaer.
 'I'm not sure he can,' sai(j his father. 'The Danzigers are not rich.'
 Glenn smiled.
 'I'm serious.'
  'I know you are, Dad, but I remember you telling me that his assets would
  total some five million dollars. flow can you say he's not rich?'
 The old man did not reply for a moment. He didn't think it was

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 funny. But Glenn Rensselaer had noticed that this obsession with money, the
 raw measure of power that money represented, was one of the few ways in
 which his father's old age showed. 'To tell you frankly, I wasn't happy to
 think of his eldest daughter marrying into the family. Lottie is a nice
 enough girl, of course, but not right for little Peter.'
  'Your "little Peter" is now a qualified lawyer and a junior partner in
  Winter's holding company.'
  His father seemed not to have heard. 'I couldn't say that to Danziger, of
  course.'
  'No, of course,' said Glenn. In fact, old Cyrus Rensselaer's opinion of
  Lottie Danziger's suitability had not been sought by Harald Winter, by
  Veronica Winter, or by Peter Winter. And the old man had been hurt by that.
 'I miss her,' said his father suddenly.
 'Veronica? But that's half a lifetime ago.'
  'I should never have agreed to her going to Europe. I had a strange
  premonition about it.'
 'Really?'
  'But she was determined to go, and I wanted her to be happy.' There was a
  passion in the old man that he'd not heard before. The loss of his beloved
  daughter was an agony that had tormented him all this time.
 'But that was more than thirty years ago, Dad.'
 'Wait till your children leave home; you'll find out what it's like.'
 'And me? Did you miss me?,
  'Sure I did. But I woi ried about Veronica. She was such a sweet child. So
  helpless, so trusting ... I hate that bastard. You know that, don't you?'
 'Harry?'
  'I'll pay him back.' For the first time his father smiled. It was the
  crafty smile that only the old know. 'Hc'll suffer as I've suffered. Then
  he'll know what he did to me.'
  'You musin't blame Harry. He was an attractive man: powerful and ruthless
  in a way that Veronica found attractive Clenn stopped.
 'Attractive in me? Is that what you were going to say?'
  Reluctantly Glenn admitted it. 'Yes, Harry is ruthless in that same way.
 'And you didn't admire it?'
  'It's not my style, Dad. And that was just as well - we would have fought.'

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       'You don't have to be a mathematician'

  'You're right, Glenn. You never fought me. You've been a good son. Did
  I never tell you that?'
 'You never did, Dad.'
  'Loyal. And I love loyalty just as I repay treachery. Want to know what
  I've done about Harry?'
 'I'm not sure I do.'
  'I've fixed it so that Peter is offered the job of a lifetime. And Harald
  adores Peter, the eldest.'
 'A job?'
  'A bank in Los Angeles. I recently bought a stake in it. They'll offer
  Petet Winter a vice-presidency. He'll come and live in America.'
 'A bank in Los Angeles?'
  'I fixed jobs for two of Dot's boys in the bank there, and they are doing
  fine.'Glenn nodded. He'd heard that the old man had gone to a lot of
  trouble for his stepsons. They, in return, had taken the name Rensselaer.
  'And Peter will do fine, too.'
  'I'd forget about it, Dad. You don't want to come between father and
  son.'
  'What about father and daughter?' the old man said shrilly. 'That's what
  he did, that Harald Winter, the swine.'
  'That was natural. He fell in love. He didn't do it to give you a bad
  time, Dad.'
  'He fell in love with the Rensselaer money, that's what he fell in love
  with; everyone knows that.'
 :He was doing all right without it.'
  He was on the verge of bankruptcy. I bailed that tinhom out, not once but
  twice, and then he had the nerve to pay me back in confetti.'
 'Let him be, Dad. Veronica loves you; she'll visit you. Be patient.'
  'It's too late now. He'll find out what it's like. He'll find out and
  I'll have the laugh on him.'
 :Take it easy, Dad.'
 He'll find out what it's like to lose your favourite child.'
  Glenn Rensselaer nodded but didn't answer. He'd always known that he
  wasn't his father's favourite, but hearing him say it hurt, hurt like
  hell.

          'It's nothing to cry about'

Veronica Winter knew before her husband, and it was Lottie Winter
who told her. The two women had become very close since Lottie's

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 marriage to Peter. At first it had been no more than the comfort of an
 American voice, but over the months the relationship had become more like
 that of mother and daughter. Harald Winter didn't like it, of course -
 he'd never liked Lottie enough to welcome her as a daughter-in-law - but
 lie was shrewd enough to know, right from the start, that he could do
 nothing to influence the relationship. So Veronica and her daughter-in-law
 had tea together regularly. It was an event to which both women always
 looked forward with great pleasure.
  It was two weeks before Christmas when Lottie brought the exciting news
  about the job. An Italian-born vice-president of the bank had made a
  special journey from Milan, Italy, where he was consolidating a big loan
  and visiting some members of his family, just to put the matter to Peter
  in person.
  'But it will be wonderful, Lottie. You'll be with your family again.'
 'Yes, it will be.'
  'Why so down-in-the -mouth?' said Veronica. She'd never seen her
  daughter-in-law like this before.
  'I feel so at home here now. It has been so marvellous putting the home
  together for Peter that I can't face the thought of losing it all and
  starting again.'
 'But think of the sunshine and your family.'
  'I know, I keep telling myself that. But here I'm a person, a someone.
  At home my folks treat me like a child.'
  'Not now you're married, they won't, Lottie darling. Your mother will be
  transported to have you there with her.'
  'She"s not my real mother. My real mother died in a railroad accident in
  Chicago when I was five.'
 'I'm sorry, Lottie,- I forgot that.'
 'And my stepmother won't be so crazy about having to share Dad.'
 'I'm sure you're wrong,' said Veronica.
  'No, I know her too well. She loves me and I love her, but every letter
  she writes says how pleased she is that I'm settling down here.'
 'What about your father?'
  'I'd like to go and see Dad, but a visit would be enough. A visit over
  Januarv, February and March, when the weather is so terrible here.'
 'And wha~, about Peter?'
  'I don't want to influence him one way or the other. It's his life: his
  career.And all the more difficult when a family business is involved.'

                214
           ,ies nothing to cry aboue

 'His father wouldn't disinherit him, Lottie.'
  'Now, don't get me wrong, Mrs Winter. Money doesn't enter into it, but I
  reckon that a wife, if she's smart, doesn't give her husband advice about
  his career. Because if things go wrong she is likely to get all the blame.
  Men are like that; at least I figure they are.'
 'I'm afraid men are like that, Lottie.'
  The maid came in. Veronica had recently changed all the servants' uniforms
  so that they were no longer in ankle-length skirts. This parlourmaid had a
  fashionably short black dress with a superb lace apron and cap. Lottie
  decided that her servants should be similarly modernized.
  It was the complete silver tea service. Even though the two women knew that
  neither of their husbands would join them, plates, teacups and cutlery were
  set for four, as always. As well as the traditional German pl urn tart
  there were brownies. Ever since the first tea they'd had together Veronica
  always tried to arrange to have some American cookies or pastries prepared
  for Lottie. It had become a treat that they both looked forward to, a
  calculated touch of nostalgia.
  When the parlourmaid had poured tea, offered the neatly cut thin bread and
  butter, and departed with a curtsy, Veronica turned to her guest and said,
  'What is it, Lottie? I feel there's something else bothering you. Is there
  something wrong between you and Peter? Would it help you to talk about it?'
 'Oh, Mrs Winter!'
 'I do wish you'd call me Veronica.'
  'Oh, Veronica,' she said. Tears welled tip in her eyes. 'You've been so
  wonderful.'
 'Lottie, darling, what is 0'
 'I'm pregnant.'
 'Are you certain?'
 'I'm certain.'
 'Have you told Peter?'
 'You're the first person I've told.'
  'It's nothing to cry about, Lottie darling. It's something to celebi-ate.'
  Lottie continued to cry; the tears rolled down her face, and she didn't
  even try to dab them away. Veronica searched for something else to say:
  'And Peter will be overjoyed. He certainly won't take the job in California
  at a time like this. It would be too much for you ... unless they'll wait
  a year.'
  'They won't wait,' said Lottie, drying her eyes with a tiny lace
  handkerchief. 'The position has to be filled by the end of January; they
  specially stipulated that.'

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  'Peter wouldn't go there alone. He wouldn't leave you. I know he wouldn't,
  and I'd forbid it anyway.'
  Lottie sobbed more until she was gasping for breath. Veronica put her arms
  round the young woman to comfort her. Tottie darling, you must pull
  yourself iogether. Sit back. Blow your nose, and have some tea.'
  'HeT turn down the job,' said Lottie after she'd had a few moments to
  recover. 'Peter wil] turn down the job, on account of the baby. Then he'll
  blame me forever afterwards.'
  'You silly child. Of course he won't. He'll be the happiest man in the
  world.'
 'Do you really think so?'
  'Of course he will. And he'll be a marvellous father. You must tell him
  your news as soon as he arrives - IT leave you together for a few moments
  - and we must get a cable off to your father and to my father, too.
  Everyone is going to be so excited at the news.'

 216
           1927M
         'That's all they ask in return'

 It was late May, a time when all Berlin is filled with the smell of linden
 flowers. The sun came spasmodically from behind ragged grey clouds, but
 it was not warm. Pauli sat outside to drink his tea and spend a few
 minutes watching the world pass by.
  Pauli's face was known in all the most fashionable caf6s in Berlin: the
  Monopol, the Josty, the Schiller, the Caf6 des Westens. But the one he
  liked best was opposite the Memorial Church: the Romanische Caf&. Some
  said this was the most famous caf6 in the whole of Germany; others said
  it was the most famous in the whole world. Yet there was always room to
  sit down, for it could hold over a thousand people. It was open day and
  night and always busy: a place where intellectuals came to discuss
  philosophy, couples came to talk about love, others came to argue about
  poLitics, write letters or memoirs, review new plays or write poems.
  There were famous faces to be seen here. Up in the balcony, where the
  chessplayers liked to sit, one could often see Emanuel Lasker, who'd been
  world champion for thirty-three years.
  Some of the clients were outrageous; at least they would have been had
  there been anyone left in Berlin who could feel outrage at the sight of
  shaved skulls, dyed hair, or flamboyant costumes. Outside in the street
  it was easier to be outraged by the sight of crippled exservicemen
  begging in their ragged uniforms, the painted faces of the homosexuals,
  or the pinched white faces of the child prostitutes.
  Inside the cafe there were always pedlars going from table to table:
  shoelaces, matches, Literarische Welt, Die Rote Fahne, a copy of the
  Times from London four days old. An angry-looking young man offered
  crayon drawings. The drawings, too, were angry: jagged and spiky deformed
  servicemen, lewd matrons in suspender belts and black stockings, and
  bernedalled officers with porcine faces and no trousers. He stopped to
  show the drawings to two well-dressed

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 Swedish tourists. They went through his wares solemnly and thoroughly but
 they did not buy. Tourists rarely did. Perhaps they didn't want to take such
 things through the customs inspections. The young man offered the drawings
 at a cheaper price. The Swedish man shook his head, the woman laughed; the
 drawings were gathered up. Some said the young man merely sold the drawings;
 others said he was the artist. But no one knew the truth about it, just as
 no one knew the truth about anything in Berlin. It was better not to know.
  There were newspapers hanging on sticks near the door. Pauli didn't take
  the Nationalist Socialist paper - from its pristine condition he guessed
  that no one else had read it, either. He selected the Berliner Zeitung am
  Mittag, an undemanding tabloid, and sat down. His usual waitress brought a
  glass of lemon tea and schnapps. He always came here for tea after the
  lunch of sandwiches that he ate at his desk. He usually sat here for thirty
  minutes before returning to his office. It was the only way he got a break
  from work. All day long at his office people put their heads round the
  door: 'I don't want to interrupt you, Pauli, but . . .'
  And the office had not got any better since the Nazis' new Gauleiter, Josef
  Goebbels, had taken over Berlin. He was too damned enthusiastic, and the
  rank and file didn't like the levy of three marks a month that he demanded
  from them. There were fewer than a thousand Nazi Party members in Berlin;
  it wasn't the way to get recruits, and Goebbels's Rhineland accent - which
  sounds funny to the ears of Berliners - hadn't helped him. Strasser, the
  Regional Chief, opposed almost everything Goebbels suggested, and SA Leader
  Kurt Daluege - with his army of brownshirts - wouldn't cooperate with
  either of them. With three bosses trying to run the Berlin office, very
  little got completed, but there was no way that any of them would listen to
  Pauli Winter's suggestions. Especially when - as Goebbels reminded him -
  he'd not even bothered to join the party.
  At one time Pauli had allocated half a day to his private clients and the
  morning to work for the party, but it was now over a month since he'd done
  any private work at all. Many clients didn't like the proximity to the
  party office or the way that uniformed SA men came banging in and out of
  his office without so much as a by-your-leave. And those who didn't care
  about his political affiliations grew tired of being so obviously a low
  priority on Pauli's work roster. It wasn't that Pauli was lazy: twice last
  month he'd actually fallen asleep in

                218
          'That's all they ask in return'

 court, but he took on too much. Nor did his long hours of work bring much
 financial reward. The Nazi Party retainer didn't go far, and on individual
 payments they always argued about his bills.
  'You're Herr Paul Winter, aren't you?' Ile looked up to see a woman of
  about sixty, perhaps older. She was wearing a gooo but ancient coat with an
  astrakhan collar. Her huge black hat, with a mauve veil wrapped round it,
  was secured by means of large ornamental hairpins. It was all out of style
  by many years: the sort of outfit his grandmother had worn at TravemOnde
  before the war.
  'Yes,'he said. Awkwardly he put his newspaper down and got to his feet.
 'You don't know who I am, do you?'
  He knew exactly who she was, and at one time he would have said so, but
  that was not the way lawyers did it. 'I don't think I do.'
 'I am Frau Guggenheimer.'
 'Won't you sit down?'
  'I mustn't keep you,' she said, but she put down her parcel, a large brown
  paper one tied neatly with lots of string, and sat down on the chair he
  pulled out for her. She was the wife of Guggenheimer the owner of a bar
  that students frequented. Hetti Guggenheimer, a girlfriend of long ago, was
  Mrs Guggenheimer's daughter.
  He waited for her to tell him what she wanted, but now that she'd summoned
  up the courage to approach him she seemed tongue-tied. He said, 'How is
  your husband?'
  She welcomed the chance to speak on the subject. 'The student trade is not
  enough; it never was. And that side of town is not so lively now that the
  Royal Palace is empty. Even Friedrichstrasse is not what it used to be. The
  centre of town has shifted. All the life is over here in Ku-damm nowadays.'
 'That's true. I'm sorry.'
  'And the Nazis don't want to give us any trade, of course, with us being
  Jewish.'
 'Perhaps he should sell up. Retire.'
  'He's got no money, Herr Winter. We lost all our savings in the big
  inflation. We don't even own the bar. We live well enough, I suppose, but
  we live from hand to mouth.'
 'Is there something you want, Frau Guggenheimer?'
  'Nazis used to come into the bar and fight. Terrible fighting. They'd come
  in on those evenings when we were crowded and shout horrible things about
  Karl Marx or Lenin. There was always someone there who'd fight them. Some
  of these young fellows like to

                219
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 fight no matter how badly hurt they get. They'd smash the furniture and hit
 out with a chair leg or with a broken bottle.
 'You say they used to do that? They stopped?'
  'Now my husband pays them money every week, a contribution to NaziParty
  funds. But we can't afford it, Herr Winter. They ask too much, and business
  is not good at this time of year.'
 'I know such things happen.'
  'You're with the Nazis, Herr Winter. Couldn't you say something to one of
  the top men there? We really can't afford it, and my husband worries. He's
  awake at nights thinking about what to do. We're getting into debt, and
  we've never been in debt before, ever.'
  'It's not really anything to do with me, Frau Guggenheimer. I'm just a
  lawyer they pay to advise them.'
  'Frau Weiss, who has the flower stall, said you helped her when those young
  communist boys were grabbing money from her cashbox.'
 'I wish she hadn't told you,' said Pauli earnestly.
 'She said you sent some of your Nazis to beat them up.'
 'That wasn't anything that I did, I assure you.'
 'And she's never had any more trouble from that day to this.'
 'Does your husband know you came to see me?'
 'Of course not.'
  'Then please don't say anything to him. In fact, don't say anything to
  anyone. Will you promise me that?'
 'I'll do anything, Herr Winter.'
 'I can't promise. I'll try.'
  She got up. 'I remember you when you first came back from the war, and that
  was a long time ago, wasn't it?'
 'A very long time ago.'
  'My Hetti went to your birthday party a few years back. She said it was
  wonderful.'
 'How is Hetti?' he asked politely.
 'She's well.,
 'Good.'
  'It can't go on like this, can it, Herr Winter - all this fighting and
  hurting people and the prices of everything?'
 'No, it can't go on, Frau Guggenheimer; something will happen.'

 He finished his tea and his schnapps and went back to the office. It was
 crowded, as usual. Unemployed party members sat in the anteroom reading,
 smoking and telling the same stories over and

               220
          'Thaes all they ask in return'

 over again. He went up to the Regional Chief's office. Strasser was out, but
 Fritz Esser was there. 'Ah! Good. Fritz. Just the man I was looking for.
 Where are those two gorillas who were arrested at the Pharus Hall battle?'
  Fritz Esser looked up from the plate of sliced sausage and rye bread that
  he had every day. 'They're waiting downstairs,' he said through a mouthful
  of food.
 'Send them up now, Fritz.'
  The Pharus Hall was a large squalid room in Mfillerstrasse in
  Berlin-Wedding. It was rented for meetings. There was no district of Berlin
  more solidly communist than Wedding, and no meeting place more regularly
  used by the communists than the Pharus Hall. That's why the new Gauleiter
  had chosen it for a well-publicized speech. The communists were of course
  waiting there for the Nazis to arrive, and the ensuing fighting was
  prolonged and bloody. Josef Goebbels had announced his intention of getting
  more publicity for his tiny Berlin Nazi Party, and he'd succeeded. Only the
  presence of a large contingent of Berlin police had restored order and
  prevented a massacre. Now it had become fashionable to call it the 'battle
  of Pharus Hall', and these two roughnecks - arrested for kicking a
  policeman until he was unconscious - were still waiting to have their cases
  heard in court.
  Although very different, they were both typical of the men who'd joined the
  SA. One was in his late thirties, an ex-serviceman with a grey lined face,
  dark, deep-set eyes, and a grey moustache. His brown uniform shirt was
  clean and pressed with a neat darn on the collar. His army record was
  exemplary. Wounded twice and severely gassed during three years of
  front-line infantry service on the Western Front. Nearly a year in military
  hospitals. It was all in his file. Pauh would need such details for the
  courts if he was to keep the fellow out of prison. Usually the courts were
  more sympathetic to the right-wing political factions than to the
  communists, but when a policeman was the victim such fine distinctions
  counted for nothing.
  The other one was scarcely a man: a pale, spotty-faced nineteenyear-old,
  nearly twenty, a huge hulk of a body but without the foundation of strength
  that proper nutrition provides. He'd left school when fourteen years old
  and had never had a proper job. His hair was dirty and his face not
  properly washed. His uniform was stained and rumpled. He was probably
  sleeping on the floor somewhere, or even in the street. His face too easily
  relaxed into the insolent smile that is the mask worn by the insecure and
  uneducated.

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        Nineteen hundred and twenty-seven

 Pauli noted it: one leering smile like that and the case would be lost
 immediately.
  'Now, I don't know who's been going to Guggenheimer's bar and squeezing
  money from them. And if I ask around I don't suppose I'll get anyone to
  tell me.' The two men exchanged brief grins. 'But you're going to go to the
  Guggenheimers and tell them it's all been a mistake. You are going to tell
  them they are not to pay any brownshirt, or party member, any more. And
  you're going to make sure that whoever has been engaging in this bit of
  private capitalism crosses the Guggenheirners off his list. Got it?'
 'It's official policy now that all Jewish . . .'
  'Shut up and listen to me. I don't want to know any of the details. The
  only thing that interests us in this room is what happens to you two when
  you go to court. Right?'
 'Yes, Heff Doktor. Right,' said the elder man.
  'And if the Guggenheimers are pestered any more, you two are going to
  suddenly find yourself without adequate legal defence.'
 'That sounds like a threat,' said the younger one.
  'Oh, does it?' said Pauli. 'Good, because that's exactly what it was.'
  The man with the grey moustache was subtler. He said, 'It might be a bit
  difficult explaining why these bloody Jews are not to make a contribution
  to our funds.'
  Pauli stood up, leaned across his desk, and poked the man in the chest.
  'Well, my friend, you tell anyone who asks you that "difficult" question
  that it was because I said so. You pass the word around!'
  'Yes, Herr Doktor.' He was an ex-army man: he liked taking orders. These SA
  men were all like that-, that's why they liked dressing up in their brown
  shirts and peaked caps and big boots. They wanted someone to take over
  their lives and give them orders.
  'Now get out. I'll get an adjournment for a few weeks. Come back on the
  first day of next month.'
 'Heil Hitler!' said both men in unison.
 'That's right,' said Pauli. 'Heil Hitler.'

 'Your brother's a decent sort of fellow,' said Fritz Esser to Pauli, having
 obviously come to this conclusion only recently. He tapped his cigar to put
 ash into an ashtray, but it went onto the tablecloth. Fritz was drunk.
  'He's a stuffy sort ofman, but he never lets anyone down,' said Pauli. He
  was self-conscious about his affection for his brother. He didn't want
  people to think he depended on Peter in any way.

                222
          'Thaes aU they ask in return'

  The room - lit only by the greenish light of two hissing and popping gas
  jets - was panelled in a dark wood, its botanical origin obscured by half
  a century of tobacco smoke and old varnish. On the wall were framed
  photos of a cycling club posing in groups with their machines -after the
  races ai Friedenauer Volkspark each year. The two men were sitting at a
  long dining table; the dinner was finished and all the guests had
  departed. The table was littered with ashtrays, plates, glasses and
  bottles, and wine was spilled on the creamcoloured linen cloth.
 'What made the bloody fool marry a Jew?'
 'They're very happy together,' said Pauli.
  'Oh sure. She's beautiful and clever and witty and rich, but she's a Jew.
  Jews should marry Jews.'
  Pauli looked at him. 'You sound like one of Goebbels's speechwriters. You
  don't believe all that stuff, do you?'
  Fritz took him by the sleeve. 'You saved me, Pauli. I don't mean saved
  my life during that damned streetfighting in 19 19, although I'll be
  eternally grateful for that, too. But if you hadn't come to the Imperial
  Palace and saved me that night, I would have ended up selling matches in
  the gutter where I often see some of those stupid bastards from the
  People's Naval Division. But after you I owe everything to the party.
  They have given me everything. I had no education, no money, no
  influential friends or family, no nothing. But the party took me and gave
  me everything I've got. And all they ask in return is that I hate Jews.
  Is that something I have to question?' He let go of Pauli's sleeve and
  drank some schnapps.
 'I didn't marry her; my brother did.'
  'So you saved his life?' said Esser. He spilled some drink down his
  shirt, drank the rest, and poured more. 'I didn't know that on that day
  I fished you out of the sea. So you'd jumped in to help him?'
  'I don't know what happened,' said Pauli. He was embarrassed, just as
  he'd been embarrassed earlier in the evening when Peter had raised a
  glass and proposed the health of the brother who'd saved his life at the
  risk of his own. 'Neither does he. We were only children, weren't we? But
  he insists that it all happened his way, so I go along with it.'
  Fritz half closed his eyes against the curling cigar smoke and smiled.
  He was a tough customer and something of a loner. Even for tonight's
  celebration he brought no partner. Despite his sly little sexy jokes and
  stories, he was seldom seen with women. Fritz said that was because all
  his lovers were married to other men, but

                223
        Nineteen hundred and twenty-seven

 sometimes Pauli wondered if that was true. The dinner had been held to
 celebrate Fritz Esser's departure to Munich. No one knew exactly what his
 new job was to be, but there was no doubt that it was a promotion. By now
 it seemed that Esser, like Captain Graf and certain other rising stars,
 was marked for a good job in the Nazi Party organization.
  Pauli had organized the farewell party. It took place in a private dining
  room in Leipziger Strasse. The food and drink were all supplied by the
  Guggenheimers, not so far away. It amused Pauli to think that all these
  ardent Nazis had been eating Frau Guggenheimer's delicious food. Some of
  the dishes were traditional Jewish ones, but the people present couldn't
  distinguish between traditional German and Jewish dishes. Not many
  Germans could.
  Pauli knew that having the Guggenheimers do the catering would be enough
  to persuade Peter and his Jewish wife, Lottie, to attend, and that was
  his chief motive in arranging it. Dr Josef Goebbels had remarked on the
  food and stayed long enough to deliver a short speech of congratulation
  from which all trace of his Rhineland accent had been eliminated. It was
  this polished performance - and the fact that he was the only one of the
  top Nazis with a quick-witted sense of humour - that earned him a round
  of applause from all present. Fritz said afterwards to Pauli that a man
  who could change his hometown accent could change anything or anybody.
  Now it was two o'clock in the morning and all the guests had departed.
  Only Pauli and Fritz remained, and they were both very drunk. Fritz
  reached for a bottle of good apple brandy from the crate that was far
  from empty. He cracked the wax from the top and used the corkscrew to
  open it and pour more for both of them.
  All the male guests, including Pauli, had managed to find evening dress.
  Some - such as Peter Winter and Dr Goebbels - even had fine suits, cut
  to the latest fashion, with padded shoulders and wide trousers. Only
  Fritz came in a lounge suit, soft shirt, and coioured tie. Was it
  indifference, or a studied declaration of his egalitarian views?Pauli
  could not decide. 'I wouldn't have Goebbels's job, not for anything,'
  said Fritz Esser. 'He's been sent here on a make-orbreak assignment.'
  'It looks like that,' agreed Pauli. He offered a cigarette and Fritz took
  one.
  'Thanks. Yes, Strasser is getting too big for his boots - all that stuff
  about government ownership of everything, and alliances with the Russian
  proletariat - and he's not doing so well: in Berlin the

                224
          'That's all they ask in return'

 membership of the party is disappointing. On the other hand, "Dummi-durnmi"
 Daluege is doing well: the SA is growing by leaps and bounds. No one know,,
 the exact figures, but my guess is that the SA outnumber the party
 memberships. If that can happen in Berlin, it can happen everywhere. If it
 happens all over Germany, Hitler will be displaced by R6hm, and the
 brownshirts will take control.'
  'And the tali will wag the dog,' said Pauli. Fritz had long ago thrown his
  lot in with Hitler and the party. If Rbhm and the brownshirts gained the
  ascendancy, all Fritz's calculations would come to nothing. 'But that won't
  happen,' said Pauli.
 :Why won't it?' Fritz wanted to be reassured.
  The party won't come to power by means of a putsch. Even Hitler must
  realize that by now.'
 'So how?'
  'He'll have to win votes, and that means the party will always keep
  control. It also means that the party will soon have to move everything to
  Berlin.'
 :You think so?'
  Suppose his putsch in Munich had worked. Do you imagine that he would have
  been allowed to form a Nazi power base in Bavaria by means of an armed
  overthrow? Of course he wouldn't - the government here in Berlin would have
  told the army to move against him, and they would have done so. He wouldn't
  have lasted a month.'
  Fritz got to his feet unsteadily and turned the gas taps. The mantle glowed
  greenish white. It was as if he thought the extra light would illuminate
  his thoughts. 'But if the Berlin government had done nothing?'
  'The army would have moved against him anyway. And if no one had acted, the
  French would have used Hitler's putsch as an excuse to occupy the whole of
  Bavaria, like they occupied the Rhineland.'
  'You're probably right,' said Fritz with a sigh. In some ways he preferred
  the idea of an armed overthrow. It was simpler and quicker and easier than
  persuading the voters, and it was much more in line with his own sort of
  thinking. 'I suppose he's sent Goebbels here because Berlin is so
  important.'
 What's he got in store for you, Fritz?'
 One day I'll get a top job, Pauli, and you'll be with me.'
  'You should try to get the party to put you up as a candidate for the
  Reichstag.'
 'I'd like that. Think what my father would say.' He thought about

                225
        Nineteen hundred and twenry-seven

 it and nodded. 'The FAhrer rewards the faithful, and I've made myself
 important to him.'
  'Don't stay away from Berlin too long, Fritz. Munich will become a
  backwater.'
  'We've known each other a long time. Right?' His words were slurred but he
  was sincere enough. 'You're my best friend, do you know that?' He put an
  arm round Pauli's shoulder.
  'Sure, sure,' said Pauli, although the idea was a complete surprise to him.
  Fritz Esser had so many friends, and the higher he rose in the party
  organization, the more friends he made.
  'Bastards, most of them,' said Fritz, as if reading his friend's mind.
  'You're the only one who's never asked me for a favour. Do you know that?'
 'No.,
  Fritz looked at him. Pauli never tried to outshine him, never tried to take
  him over or push him aside. Pauli was the only man he knew who got genuine
  pleasure from his friends' advancement. 'And you need a few friends, you
  old bastard.' He clapped Pauli on the back so that he almost choked on his
  drink. 'Only the other day I was asked why you had intervened to stop the
  Guggenheimers paying their money.'
 'Oh, yes.'
 'And the party needs funds. Badly needs funds.'
 'So what did you say?'
  A cough and a laugh. 'What did I say? I said that you were protecting an
  informant.'
  ' "Protecting an informant". I'm glad you told me what I was doing.'
  'I learned that one from you, you cunning little swine. I learned
  everything I know from you.'
  Pauli smiled. Fritz said, 'What else do you know that I don't know?' He
  poured more apple brandy.
  'Get close to Captain Gbring,' said Pauli. 'If Hitler comes to power it
  will be through Gdring's efforts. G6ring is acceptable to the middle class.
  For all sorts of reasons, Gbring will be the centre of power. Hitler needs
  G6ring. All the others will be satellites.'
  'You know who was chasing the Guggenheimer business, don't you?'
  'No,' said Pauli, although he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his
  stomach simply because he did guess who it was.
 'Your friend Brand. I [e's just become a Sturmbannfiffirer, under

                226
          'That's all they ask in return'

 Victor Lutze, in Elberfeld. He's going places, your old comrade Brand.'
 'I heard he was in the Ruhr SA.'
  'And he hates you, Pauli. He really hates you. What did you do to him?'
 'Nothing,' said Pauli. 'He's just overendowed with hatred.'
  'Watch out for him, Pauli. If anything ever happens I'll do what I can. You
  know that, don't you?'
 'Sure, Fritz. Thanks.'
  'He's out to get you.' Fritz swigged the last of his apple brandy and then
  threw the empty glass at the wall. It was a thick, crudely made glass of
  the sort specially made for the hotel trade, but so violent was Fritz that
  it smashed into tiny fragments.
  When Fritz tried to get up, he staggered and knocked his chair over. Pauli
  laughed, Fritz was very drunk, or he wouldn't have been saying these
  things.
  'You're not frightened, are you?' said Fritz in his usual brutally direct
  way.
  'Frightened of what?' said Pauli. He helped Fritz keep his balance,
  although he was equally drunk.
  'That's right,' said Fritz. But they both knew that Pauli was frightened.
  He'd miss having Fritz in the Berlin party office to protect him against
  the enmities and jealousy, petty spites and chronic vendettas that had
  become the way the Nazi Party worked. The top leadership believed that the
  law of the jungle provided the party with natural strength.
  How would Pauli survive? Without Fritz he'd have no one to protect his
  back.

 227
           1929
      'There is nothing safer than a zeppelin'

 There wasn't very much upholstery remaining; that's why the sound of the
 piano echoed from the dirt-encrusted gilded angels in the domed ceiling, and
 down through the derelict space at the back of the dress circle where once
 had stood a beautiful oak counter and an elaborate mirrored bar.
  Once it had been a big theatre. Now it wasn't really a theatre at all in
  the sense that that word is used in London, Paris, or New York. It had
  suffered at the hands ofrioters and thieves. Back in 192o a Freikorps had
  used it as their barracks, and after that the Reichswehr had stored here
  ammunition that the generals had wanted to hide from the Allied Armistice
  Commission. One of the most talented and avant-garde of the new
  producer-directors had leased it for a year and, when the rent was due,
  ripped out and sold off fixtures, fittings and floor coverings to get out
  of debt. So now it wits a cold, draughty, uncomfortable shell. And it
  smelled of the cats that ran wild in the cellars. But even now, in the
  winter of 1929, the coldest winter in memory, people would still pay to
  come here if the show was good enough.
  It was almost midnight; the runthrough and some last-moment auditions had
  finished. Almost everyone had gone home. The stage and auditorium were
  totally dark except for one dim electric bulb hanging very low on one side
  of the stage to illuminate the piano. The theatre was empty but for the
  piano player and the woman leaning over him to see the scrawled script and
  manuscript notes from which he was playing.
  'I adore it,' said Lou ie, starting to hum, following the melody her
  husband was playing on the piano.
  'Yes, it's a wonderful melodv.' Peter was dressed in a dark grey lounge
  suit with a bowler hat perched on the back of his head. It was not the waN
  he'd ordinarily have worn his hat, but Peter had seen one of the Americans
  like that, and he now sometimes imitated it.

                228
       'There is nothing safer than a zeppelin'

  'And there are words, aren't there?' She was wearing a gigantic
  golden-coloured fur coat. It was too cold here to take it off.
  'You know Brecht: the words always come first, then Kurt writes the music.'
  Peter sang; his voice was tuneful but soft and unsure: 'Oh, the shark has
  lovelv teeth, dear, and they cut you like a knife...
 'Oh, stop. Why does he always write such stupid lyrics?'
 Te's a poet.,
 You all kowtow to him too much.'
  'I don't think so. You should see him directing actors, Lottie. Silly
  little girls become like stars when he talks to them.'
 :1 love to watch you playing piano; you are so happy.'
  It was your idea, Lottie. I'd given up all ideas of ever playing again. But
  now I sometimes think I'd like to leave Father and go into show business.'
  He inserted silly, skilful cadenzas into the music.
  'I hope you're not serious, Peter darling. These people are paupers. And
  you've got a wife and daughter to look after.'
  'I know, Lottie. I wasn't serious. If I worked in the theatre fulltime,
  maybe I wouldn't find it so interesting and exciting. But it's a privilege
  to work with the great names: Piscator, Brecht, Kurt and all the rest of
  them: Reinhardt, Jannings, Peter Lorre. . . .' He changed to play a few
  bars from'Moon of Alabama'and made it into something foolishly grand. Then
  he stopped suddenly. 'I could never have taken that job in California and
  left all this behind; you know that, don't you?'
  'I know it now, but at the time I didn't know working with Brecht mattered
  so much to you. You're getting quite famous.'
  , No, I'm not getting famous, except as the piano player with a half-finger
  missing.' He rearranged the pages in front of him, took off his glasses,
  looked up at her, and smiled. She hadn't yet got used to seeing him in his
  horn-rinimed reading glasses. Peter hadn't got used to them, either, and
  now he briefly rubbed the little red marks they'd left on each side of his
  nose. 'They use me because I'm cheap: in fact, free.'
  'That's not true, darling. The way you sight-read from all those scribbled
  notes and make a piano sound like a full band is a miracle.'
  'It's good enough for auditions and first rehearsals, and that's the
  exciting bit. Once the show is put on, I'm less interested in it.'
  'But how do you remain so good-tempered about all this communist
  propaganda? I remember a time when you would have walked out on songs like
  the ones in Mahagonny. They're not only connnunist but anti-American, too.'

                229
         Nineteen hundred and twenty-nine

  'Does that annoy you?' He was genuinely concerned, and she was touched by
  it.
  'Yes,' she said, 'sometimes it does. Brecht is a. pig, and his ignorance
  about America is phenomenal. Why does he always write about things he
  doesn't know about?'
  'He's not a politician, darling. He's a poet. I don't think much about the
  content of the songs, and I don't think the audiences do, either. People
  come to be entertained. They come to escape the misery for a couple of
  hours of fantasy. Brecht makes "Amerika" a place for his fantasies.'
  'You're too nice, Peter.' She pulled the collar of the fur coat closer
  about her neck.
  'Being married suits me. This damned piano is already going out of tune
  again. Look at that. He tapped a dead note.
 'I love you.'
  He looked up, pursed his lips to show her he loved her, too, and continued
  playing.
  She went to get his coat, gloves and cane from the chair where he'd
  carefully set them. She knew he'd sit here playing the piano for another
  hour or so if she didn't drag him away.
  Peter Winter could easily have been playing his own piano in his own
  comfortable home - Lottie had bought him a fine Bechstein grand for his
  thirty-third birthday - but he seemed to get some special sort of pleasure
  from playing this neglected old instrument, just because it was on the
  stage in this famous old theatre. Peter would have denied it strenuously
  had she said so, but he was unmistakably 'stage struck'. She'd seen it
  happen before. Her stepmother had wasted years dancing, desperate to get
  into show business. The house in California was still filled with photos of
  her in her stage costume. Lottie had always suspected that it was her
  stepmother who'd bullied her father into letting the movie people build
  hideous studios on their beautiful orange groves.
  She put Peter's hat level on his head and draped his overcoat across his
  shoulders. 'Come along, darling, or I'll start to think you don't like to
  be at home.'
  He kissed her. 'It's a wonderful home, and there is nowhere else I'd rather
  be than at home with you and little Helena. And soon your parents will be
  here to see what a wonderful wife and mother you are.'
  'I wish they weren't coming on that wretched airship. I have nightmares
  about it.'

               230
       'There is nothing safer than a zeppelin'

  'Don't be silly, darling. There is nothing safer than a zeppelin. They've
  been flying for twenty-nine years off and on, and not one passenger has
  ever been hurt. You can't say that about trains, cars, or ocean liners.'
  'What about all the people killed in the war? What about you and your
  injured hand?'
  He frowned. 'That was different. They weren't passengers: they were
  soldiers and sailors, and thert were guns firing at them. No one is going
  to be firing at the Graf Zeppelin.'
  'Suppose they're ill? Mother can't even handle a sea voyage comfortably.'
  'This flight around the world will make the Zeppelin company front-page
  news everywhere. Already the flight to Palestine was in the English and
  American newspapers; think what they'll say about it, going completely
  round the world, stopping only at Tokyo, Los Angeles and Lakehurst, New
  Jersey.'
 'They're not young any more, Peter.'
  'They'll go from Los Angeles to Friedrichshafen in one week, having had a
  weekend in New York. It's a miracle, Lottie. There will only be about
  twenty passengers-, my father had the devil of a job getting two tickets
  for them. Most of them are reserved for important government officials or
  journalists.'
  'I don't want to sound ungrateful, darling. It was a wonderful idea, and
  Daddy is terribly pleased about it. He says it's made him the most
  celebrated man in California.'

        'Invest this five doUars with me'

 The Graf Zeppelin gleamed in the sunshine. This astounding flying machine
 was almost one year old. The airship first took to the air in September
 1928, and since then it had attracted the attention of the whole world. But
 none of its previous flights had been more dramatic than this one. This was
 the final leg of a journey that had taken the great airship fully round the
 world. It had sailed almost silently across a thousand miles of Russia's
 wastelands, the angry Pacific Ocean, the pale American prairies, and the
 grey Atlantic waters. In the crowded streets of New York and Tokyo, just as
 in the quiet tundra and swampland, people had craned their necks and cheered
 the big silver fish as it floated along at a steady eighty-five miles per
 hour, awesome and unstoppable. Now, before dark, the airship would be back
 home again.

                231
         Nineteen hundred and truenty-nine

  The breakfast things had been cleared away, and there was nothing to do but
  look down at the German countryside and work up an appetite for the lunch.
  The chef had been chosen from among all the Hamburg-Amerika Line's cooks,
  and the wines were suited to the excellent food that came from the small
  but well-equipped electric kitchen.
  The Graf Zeppelin cruised at fifteen hundred feet, its shadow darting
  across forest and farmland. It was late summer; the sky was blue and the
  air was clear, so that below them the trees, farm buildings, and animals
  looked like toys.
  'I just don't want the ffight to end,' said Mrs Danziger as their airship
  crossed Germany, heading towards the Bodensee and the Zeppelin company's
  base at Friedrichshafen.
  Her husband chuckled. 'Didn't I tell you so?' Mr Simon Danziger was a
  white-haired, rotund, somewhat cherubic little man in a palepeach-coloured
  suit that was unmistakably Californian.
  'If anyone had told me it would be so smooth . . .' The sentence tailed
  away, as many of her sentences and ideas did. 'And the engines, so quiet.'
  As the shiny silver airship had neared its destination, she had begun to
  worry about her hair. Back home she went to the hairdresser three times a
  week. She hated the idea of greeting her (laughter and her son-in-law - and
  perhaps other members of his family -- with her hair not properly permed by
  someone she could rely on.
  She looked round the cabin. This room was no larger than the big reception
  room at their home - or what they preferred to call 'the ranch house'- in
  Ventura County. But it had accornmodated twenty passengers for the whole
  ffight. Here they'd been served their three meals a day, and this had been
  the only place to sit apart from the very cramped two berth cabins. Of
  course she'd taken the tour of the airship from stem to stern - all of them
  had done that, just to vary the monotony of staring down at the green-grey
  ocean for hour after hour. But one tour of the zeppelin was enough for her.
  After that she'd spent most of the time sitting here in the large cabin,
  talking to the other passengers or to the airship's officers.
  It had been a wonderful surprise to find that one of the passengers who
  joined the airship at Lakehurst, New Jersey, was the son of an old friend
  as well as being the uncle of Lottie's husband: Major Glenn Rensselaer. He
  didn't normally use the army rank, but it proved useful when pulling
  strings to get a ticket for this record-
  
                232
         'Invest this five dollars with me'

 breaking flight. As he'd explained modestly, and without describing the
 dangers and skills of his work with thf- British fliers, most of his wartime
 service had been spent as a civilian. But in the final few months of 1918
 he'd been officially gazetted to the U. S. Army so that his knowledge of the
 German aviation industry could be available to the Armistice Commission.
 Nowadays he remained on the Reserve.
  Glenn Rensselaer was a brawny man who, despite his approaching fiftieth
  birthday, was as childishly excited by the flight as anyone aboard. He
  still had lots of hair, and the blue 'Rensselaer eyes' were large and
  sincere. In many ways he was like his father, Cyrus, except that no one
  would mistake Glenn for a successful painter, as people had his father when
  he was fifty. Glenn had the leathery look of the outdoors. And, quite apart
  from not looking like an artist, Glenn didn't even look successful: his
  clothes were neither of top quality nor well fitting. He wore a
  dark-grey-striped suit that yielded nothing to the well-established fashion
  of boxy shoulders and 'Oxford -bag' trousers. It was the sort of outfit
  that could be bought in a department store, such as Wertheims in Berlin,
  which is where he'd bought it.
  Glenn Rensselaer was a sociable man, and he'd conversed at length with
  every.passenger on the airship by the last day of the flight. Most of the
  people aboard had some special interest in aviation, whether as serving
  officers, government employees, or journalists, and Glenn was interested to
  hear their opinions of the zeppelin. The Danzigers were almost the only
  people aboard who were not professionally interested in the workings of the
  airship, and with them Glenn's conversation was about the family into which
  their daughter Lottie had married, and about the granddaughter they were so
  anxious to see. Glenn Rensselaer's son, Cyrus, was eight years old, a
  beautiful, happy child, and the table was littered with snapshots.
  But Glenn spent a great deal of the time twiddling his thumbs, drinking
  strong coffee and fidgeting with tableware. Like many of the other
  passengers, he found the total ban against smoking irksome. But with a few
  million cubic metres of highly flammable hydrogen close above their heads,
  he had no quarrel with this regulation.
  'My husband, Simon, feels it the way you do,' explained Mrs Danziger. 'He
  smokes cigars. Ever since we first met he's been in the habit of lighting
  up one of his big Havanas after lunch, and again after dinner. I never
  remember him skipping one except when he's been sick - not until now, that
  is.'

                233
         Nineteen hundred and twenty-nine

  'Nita,' Mr Danziger told his wife, 'you'll have to have all our mail
  ready within the hour, or else it won't be accepted by the airship post
  office..'
  'Isn't it wonderfuP' his wife said to Glenn Rensselaer. 'When Simon heard
  that you could mail letters aboard, he had his office address envelopes
  for all our friends and Simon's business associates. Over one hundred
  letters.'
  'Two for each,' said Mr Danziger proudly. 'One letter mailed on each
  sector. Mail sent on the Los Angeles--to-Lakehurst sector got different
  postmarks from the mail posted on the transatlantic leg. I'd say a lot
  of those folks will treasure a souvenir like that. Who knows, in time
  maybe it will become valuable.'
  'Simon collects German stamps,' said Mrs Danziger. 'The mail sent on
  those first trips of the airship last year is already valuable.'
 'Not really valuable,' protested Simon Danziger.
  'Doubled in price,' insisted his wife. 'I'd like to see the rest of our
  investments do as well '
  'Well, you'd be surprised to know, honey, that we have quite a few
  investments that look like they'll do much better than that before this
  year is through. The New York stock market is running wild lately.'
  'Simon takes care of that kind of thing,' said Mrs Danziger vaguely.
  'I~ve got no head for figures.' She laughed. 'Never did have.'
  Glenn Rensselaer said, 'Some folks are getting a little worried about the
  market. Many stock prices are rocketing way past what they are worth in
  earnings: that's a dangerous sign.'
 'I don't get you,' said Danziger.
  Glenn hesitated. Talking about money was not something he enjoyed. He
  said, 'I use a rough rule of thumb that a stock should be valued at about
  ten times its earnings. Now I'm watching folks pay fifty times the annual
  earnings! Radio Corporation of America went from eighty-five to four
  hundred and twenty points - and RCA never paid a dividend at allP
  Danziger smiled. 'Isn't it enough that the share prices keep going up?'
 'Not if the stock is not really worth the price.'
  'Stocks are worth whatever they will fetch,' said Mr Danziger
  authoritatively. 'The government stick to a cheap money policy because
  it's good for business. Well, darn it, it is good for business, and
  people are buying stocks as fast as they can. That's the American way;
  that's what I believe in.'

                234
         'Invest this five dollars with me'

  'I don't have much in the way of savings,' said Glenn Rensselaer, 'but
  a couple of months bat k my father told me to put everything into
  government bonds, and I (lid just that.'
  'Your father is an old friend of mine, as you know. I never go to New
  York without we have lunch together. And Nita will tell you how much I
  admire his savvy as a businessman,' said Danziger, 'But businessmen get
  cautious. I'd say your father has become too cautious, Glenn. You take
  my advice, my friend. Take what money you've got and make a little cash
  while the chance is there. Any time at all, the government will decide
  to let interest rates go up, but meanwhile Wall Street is the place to
  put your money, not government bonds.'
  'I'm sure you're right,' said Glenn and smiled. He was obviously
  unconvinced.
  Glenn's manner provoked Danziger to elaborate. He asked Glenn for a
  five-dollar bill and put it on the table to smooth it with the side of
  his hand. 'Now, I want you t o invest this five dollars with me - I did
  the same thing with my nephew last Christmas; it's an object lesson - and
  in six months I'll return it to you plus what it's made on the market.'
 'That's mighty nice of you, but . . .'
  Simon Danziger was enjoying himself. He chuckled to admit that it was a
  somewhat childish game. 'Write your name right there on the bill, and
  some address where I can reach you in six months, and date it ... You'll
  see your profit and it will surprise you.'
  'Well, okay, Mr Danziger.' Glenn recognized in Simon Danziger the zeal
  of the newly converted.
  Mrs Datiziger was more perceptive: she saw Glenn's embarrassment. 'I'll
  get our mail toget her,' she said, 'and leave you men to talk business.'
  She stood up. 'Do you have any mail for the postal clerk, Mr Rensselaer?'
  'No, I don't have any mail. I'm not much good at writing letters, I'm
  afraid. I never got the liang of it.'
  'You know the Winter family well, Mr Rensselaer,' said Simon Danziger
  once the two men were left alone. 'I must admit that I find the prospect
  of meeting them for the first time very daunting. Have you got any tips
  for me?' He tried to make it sound like a joke, but there was no
  mistaking the serious note in his voice.
  'I'm sure you'll like your son-in-law, Mr Danziger. Peter Winter is a
  very sincere young man.'
  'And from the photos we've seen, a handsome man, too.' He carefully
  placed Glenn's fivc-dollar bill in hi~, wallet-
  
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 'Yes, that's true. And his mother is a truly wonderful woman.'
  'No doubt about that,' said Danziger, 'every letter my daughter writes is
  singing your sister's praises. I'd say that without your sister Lottie
  would have found it much more difficult to settle down over there in
  Berlin.'
  Glenn was cautious: it was a two-edged compliment. 'I guess your wife would
  have preferred her to come home.'
  'Sure. We both would. But a wife has to arrange her life around her
  husband's business affairs. Nita knows that: everyone knows it. No, Nita
  appreciates the way your sister went out of her way to be so nice to our
  Lottie. It was a comfort to us both.'
  'The Winters are a swell family. Of course, Harald - Peter's father - is
  well known throughout Germany.'
  'A self-made man, so I hear. Started out with just a handful of cash and
  parlayed it into a fortune.'
  'Some ofthe stories are exaggerated,' said Glenn. 'Harald Winter wasn't. a
  pauper when he started out . . .'
  '. . . and he's not sitting on a fortune now,' Danziger finished the
  sentence. 'Is that what you were going to say?'
  'German industry has gone through tough times,' said Glenn, choosing his
  words carefully. 'Winter's corporations made a mint of money in the war,
  but when Germany lost, a lot of debts went unpaid. There were two factories
  in Alsace, so when Alsace became a part offrance, those assets were lost.
  After the war, strikes, riots and revolution turned Germany upside down,
  and he's only lately got himself back on his feet.'
  'The way I heard it, Harald Winter made a killing in the great inflation Of
  1923.'
  'That's correct, but in 1924, after the new money was introduced, the
  government demanded repayments from businesses that had profited too well
  on government loans. Harald Winter had to pay out on some of those old
  deals.'
 'You don't say? We've never heard anything about that.'
  'Now, don't get me wrong, Mr Danziger. Harald Winter is a very rich and
  successful businessman, but he has his ups and downs. Lately he's been
  facing a lot of criticism from his codirectors. He could be ousted. I'm
  telling you all this so you realize that he needs his son Peter to handle
  some of the problems he's up against.'
  'That's real nice of you, Mr Rensselaer. Maybe you know that a few years
  back Peter was offered a vice-presidency with a Los Angeles bank. My wife
  and I were mighty disappointed that they didn't come and live in
  California.'

               236
         'Invest this five dollars with me'

 'I'm sure you were.'
  'But now for the first time I see the refusal in another tight. The boy was
  being loyal to his father, and I respect him all the more for that.'
 'That's right.'
  'But my daughter wrote and told me that you'd advised him against taking
  that job.'
  Glenn was flustered. He tingered one of the snapshots of his eightyear-old
  son and laid it upon another, like a man playing patience. He
  hadn'treckoned that Peter would tell his wife, and that she would tell her
  parents. 'Well ... they were expecting the baby.'
  'As I understand it, you had confidential information about that bank, and
  you made a special trip to tell Peter that a job with them could prove
  disappointing.'
  Glenn bit his lip. This was a new aspect of Simon Danziger: he could be
  tough. 'That's correct. My advice was to stay with his father.'
  'And he took your advice, but the bank is flourishing, the way I hear it.'
 'You are right. I was being overcautious, I guess.'
  'Just like with your treasury bonds?' Danziger turned his head to watch the
  countryside unrolling beneath them. It was rich, fertile land, green and
  lush in a way the California landscape never was. Yet this German ear-th
  was regimented in small rectangular parcels that varied little in size or
  shape.
 'Just like that,' said Glenn.
 'I guess caution runs in the Rensselaer blood,' said Danziger.
  Glenn smiled and said nothing. He just couldn't decide how much of it was
  hostility. Maybe none. Maybe Danziger should just be taken at face value,
  like a T-bill.

      'Irou can't just make them disappear'

Mr Simon Danziger was variously described as a man of infinite
sense and good judgement and as a cunning, parasitic loafer. This
disagreement came from the way that Simon Danziger lived solely on
profits and interest from his investments. At one time he'd tried to
take personal control of the companies in which he invested, but
found it both confusing and dull. From time to time he'd even
bought small businesses, including three hotels, so that he could

                237
         Nineteen hundred and twenty-nine

 occupy himself with the decisions of management. Although this was more
 interesting for him, he'd seldom been able to contribute any ideas that bore
 fruit in prestige or profits. Now he let other people earn the money and
 didn't interfere with them.
  Yet time never passed slowly for Simon Danziger: he was seldom if ever
  bored. He enjoyed long country walks; carefully planned dinner parties and
  the conversation around his table; arranging, and rearranging, 'writing
  up', and adding to the collection of German stamps he'd inherited from his
  father; tending his small but elaborate garden; writing long letters (many
  of them t9 fellow stampcollectors); and, above all else, reading.
  Danziger was a voracious and omnivorous reader. A bookstore owner in Santa
  Barbara had come to know the Danzigers so well that he chose books and
  shipped them a dozen or more at a time. Seldom did his selection earn a
  complaint. Most of the books were, in the broadest sense, either art,
  biographical, or historical, books that helped the Danzigers 'stay in touch
  with culture' from their home on the far side of the world.
  So the Danzigcrs didn't come to Europe unprepared. A visit with them to the
  Greek and Egyptian collections of the New Museum left Peter Winter
  exhausted: his in-laws moved from room to room at a snail's pace and
  discussed each exhibit in wearying detail.
 I 'I told you not to go!'Lottie reminded her husband with a laugh as he sank
 down in an armchair and sighed deeply. They were waiting in the sitting room
 of her parents' large, luxurious suite on the fourth floor of the Adlon
 Hotel. 'My father has a pathological craving for culture- it's a disease
 endemic to certain regions of California.'
 'The~ never get tired.'
  'Do you know how long it takes on the train from Los Angeles to Chicago?
  And even then you are only in Chicago. My parents are starved for culture:
  starved!' Lottie was standing at the window watching the traffic in Pariser
  Platz. It had been raining, and the fallen leaves stuck flat and shiny on
  the road, like newly minted gold coins. She loved this view; it summed up
  Berlin for her. Across the Platz was the Brandenburg Gate and the long,
  long avenue that went right through the Tiergarten. 'I wish we lived on
  this side of town; don't you, darling?'
  'Only the other day you were telling your mother that all the smartest
  restaurants and chic shops were in Ku-darmn.'
  'I didn't say they weren't, Peter. But this old part of town is the real
  Berlin. Unter den Linden, the palace, the Reichstag - these are the places
  that make the city unique.'

               238
        'You can'tjusl make them disappear'

  Peter rubbed his face. 'How I'll stay awake through the concert, I don't
  know.'
  'It's Bruckner, darling - sudden, loud and discordant. Bruckner wrote
  music for people who might be tempted by sleep.'
  'I wish you'd seen your father when he first caught sight of the Queen
  Nefertiti bust. I was watching him. His eyes popped wide open. He shouted
  out loud. "Golly!" he said, just like that: Golly! " ,
 'I felt like saying "golly" myself when I first saw it.'
  'And he knows everything there is to know about Greek vases. Far more
  than I care to hear about, in fact.'
 She laughed. 'Poor darling.'
  'Furthermore, your father actually corrected me on something I said about
  the Royal House of Hohenzollern. He knows more about even German history
  than I do.'
  'Well, you don't know much about German history.... I don't know why you
  are so astonished. I told you what my crazy parents were like long before
  they came.'
  'Yes, you did, Lottie darling. I just didn't believe you. And, Lottie,
  you must remind me to speak with the dining-room manager downstairs
  before we sit down. I'm the host tonight. It would be an absolute
  disaster if the cost of the dinner tonight went on your father's bill.
  If Uncle Glenn gets back from Hamburg in time there will be eighteen of
  us, quite a crowd. It's sure to go on very late, and I must be in the
  office tomorrow - I've missed so many days since your parents arrived,
  and tomorrow there's an important board meeting.' He stopped. It was
  better not to tell her of the acrimonious disputes in the board room as
  an energetic group of directors fought to take control of the holding
  company. It wasn't the money. Papa had enough shares to give him a
  comfortable income, but the blow to Harald Winter's pride would be
  terrible to see. Peter prayed it wouldn't happen.
  Lottie murmured assem, still looking out the window. 'I hope Mother will
  be ready in time. I have to take a bath and change and I have someone
  coming in to fix my hair.'Coming across Pariser Platz she saw a group of
  SA merk, in their brownshirt uniforms and high boots, marching behind a
  swastika flag. She turned away from the window and looked at her watch.
  'Your brother won't come in his uniform, will he?'
  'Uniform? Pauli? He's put on too much weight to fit into that these
  days.'

                239
         Nineteen hundred and twenty-nine

 'You said he'd become a brownshirt.'
 'No, darling. I said he'd joined the Nazi Party.'
 'Isn't that the same thing?'
  'No, the SA, with their brownshirt uniforms, are quite separate. They're
  a rabble that that dreadful Captain R6hrn recruited from Freikorps
  riffraff and chronic unemployed. They are closely allied to Hitler's Nazi
  Party, but there's a lot of friction between them.'
 'It's a fine distinction, isn't it?'
  'No. The Nazi Party is a political party, like the socialists, the
  communists, the Centre Party, and so on. They don't wear uniforms,
  perhaps just a small circular swastika badge in the buttonhole.'
 'I wish your brother wasn't a member.'
  Peter shrugged. 'You know Pauli by now, Lottie. He's not exactly a
  zealot, is he? Pauli has even less interest in politics than I do. He
  joined the party because nowadays he gets almost his entire income from
  them. He thought it would look bad if he continued to say he didn't want
  to join. As a lawyer, you see, he has to be told many party secrets.'
  'I wish your brother had some other kind of work. He is a nice boy: I
  like him.'
  'I know. I told my father that we should have him in the family business,
  but things are difficult right now, and this job with the Nazis has been
  the making of him. When he got out of law school I wasn't even sure he'd
  be able to scratch a living. But now he's becoming quite influential in
  Berlin politics.'
 'Pauli is?'
  'Oh, I don't mean he'll ever be a politician, but he has the ear of the
  Berlin party chiefs. Anyone who wants a favour from Goebbels or Strasser
  or from SA Leader Daluege goes to Pauli Winter. He's becoming a
  go-between for the Nazis and many of the top people.'
 'It's the anti-Jewish propaganda that is so wicked.'
 'I don't give that any attention.'
  'You won't forget that your daughter, Helena, is half Jewish, will you,
  Peter?'
  'It's just their strategy. Pauli knows these people, and he says that
  it's only for vote-catching. Everyone knows that the anti-Jewish nonsense
  will all be dropped if they get any nearer to a majority in the
  Reichstag. In the coming year they'll begin to eliminate it from the
  prograrnme '
  'What programme? They haven't got a programme, except hating the Jews.'

               240
        'You can't just make them disappear'

  'Nothing is going to happen to the Jews, Lottie. Don't get upset on that
  account. Look around you: the German economy would collapse without the
  Jews.'
 'But do the Nazis know that?'
  Peter looked at his wife with concern. He hadn't realized how much the
  Nazi propaganda affected her. It was, of course, the presence in Berlin
  of her parents. Suddenly she was having to explain to them things she'd
  previously avoided thinking about. 'Well, anyway,' sod Peter in an effort
  to relax her and end these childish fears. 'How can they get rid of the
  Jews? They're Germans; they live here, don't they? You can't just make
  them disappear.'

         'Colorxl Homer commandtng'

 The harvest had been gathered and it was the Lime of year when, since
 history began, the warrior had earned his pay. The water in the broad
 river flowed sluggishly through the rolling landscape, sweeping round the
 meadow that rose gently towards the tree-clad slopes where the glearrung
 birches had already shed their leaves. A whistle blew three times, and
 before the last blast ended three soldiers ran forward, disappearing into
 the drifting smoke and then reappearing as an unexpected gust of wind
 clawed the smoke aside to reveal a platoon ofengineers at the waterside.
 From them came the noise of a generator as the soldiers inflated supports
 of a pontoon bridge to improvise a raft.
  A large grey-painted saloon car, its -engine warmed and ready, started
  at the first swing of a starting handle and, still wielding the handle,
  a helmeted officer clamped a boot onto the running board of the
  accelerating motor, heaved himself into the passenger seat, and slammed
  the door.
  The car slid on the wet grass before its heavy-duty tyres took a grip.
  By the time the car reached the water's edge, the combat engineers had
  ramps in po,iition. The car rolled onto the raft, the weight of it making
  water wash right over the inflated rubber supports. At the stern of the
  raft an engineer manipulated an outboard motor.
  By the time the car was on the raft and secured, another greypainted car
  was coming acro~s the meadow. And tY--n a third. They'd been concealed
  behind the cottages near the broken, half-submerged timber jetty where
  once there had been a ferryboat.

                241
         Nineteen hundred and twenty-nine

  The men in the command post watched every move. 'The first tank is ready to
  go,' said the young Leutnant. His name was Rudolf von Kleindorf, and he was
  the baby-faced second son of an aristocratic World War I general. Von
  Kleindorf had not graduated from cadet school in time to serve on active
  duty, and now he showed an exaggerated respect for men like Horner, who'd
  fought in the war.
  'Not enough smoke,' said Oberleutnant Alex Horner, who was, for the purpose
  of this exercise, a colonel commanding a battalion of tanks. "Where are the
  smoke troops?'
  'That's all the smoke we have,' said von Kleindorf, his 'chief of staff'.
  'Damn!' said Horner. 'Set fire to one of those dirty little timber huts.
  Get fuel from the transport people - plenty of oil. Make black smoke. If
  the enemy see those rafts they'll guess this is the Schwerpunkt and that
  our efforts upstream are a feint.'
  'There are people living in those huts,' protested the 'chief of staff'.
 'It can't be helped: Nke need the smoke.'
  Von Kleindorf energetically turned the handle of the field telephone and
  spoke into it, ordering the houses fired. But the officer at the other end
  said it was impossible. All of his motor transport was being used as
  'tanks'. He could send men on bicycles, but it would take time to fill
  containers with fuel, and they would be difficult to carry by bike.
 Alex Horner cursed again wh,-:n he heard the reply.
  'They are Arbeitskommandos,' said von Kleindorf to explain the shortcomings
  of the transport unit. The AK were a secret reserve army formed from the
  remnants of the Freikorps. Formerly disguised as labour associations and
  sports societies, they were now dressed in army-style uniforms and under
  the command of Lieutenant Colonel von Bock, chief of staff of the 3rd
  Reichswehr Division. Officially the AK were civilian labourers assigned to
  help the hundred-thousand-man army that the peace treaty permitted, but
  when there were no prying eyes around they became soldiers.
  'Get the tanks going,' said Horner. The smoke was thinning still more by
  now, and through his binoculars he could see the defenders on the other
  bank. If he could see them from the command post on the hillside, it was a
  reasonable guess that they could see the rafts. Out of sight, upstream,
  they'd soon be dragging into position the six wheelbarrows that were their
  assigned high-velocity antitank guns.
  'Damn! Damn! Damn!' said Horner, who was not given to such displays of
  emotion.

                242
          'Colonel Homer commanding'

  Within three hours the battle was decided, the river crossing had been
  repulsed, the defenders had won.
  'It was a good idea,' said von Kleindorf in an effort to comfort his
  commander. 'No one ever thought of making the pontoon-bridge components
  into rafts before. If the transport company had fired the houses . . .'
  Alex Horner's face gave no sign of any emotion whatsoever. 'Who is the
  commander of the AK down there?'
  Von Kleindorf consulted his notebook. 'Brand. He's described here as a
  Sturmbannfiffirer. A Sturmbann is a brownshirt battalion. The equivalent
  rank is majot,'he added, to warn Horner that the AK officer outranked him.
 Horner said nothing.
  Brand. It was a common enough name, but the officer who eventually appeared
  was the same tormentor Alex Horner had known so long ago and never
  forgotten.
  'You sent for me, Oberleumant?' Sturmbannfiffirer Heinrich Brand asked
  formally. He had not changed much, the same 'Crazy Heini', with his plucked
  eyebrows and the beady, quick-moving little eyes placed too close on each
  side of his thin nose. Impeccably turned out: Iron Cross first class on his
  pocket and swagger stick in his hand. The only false notes were the
  nicotine- stained fingers and, more noticeably, the greying moustache, its
  lower part dyed yellow by the cigarettes he constantly smoked.
  'Where was the staff transport, Brand?' asked von Kleindorf. Brand stared
  at his questioner. Brand was in his mid-forties and a senior SA man, but
  these two kids - junior officers, neither of them even thirty - treated him
  like dirt. He recognized Horner, of course, and he knew that Horner
  recognized him. It was typical of these arrogant Prussian swine that
  Horner, the so-called commander, should remain aloof and silent, in the
  manner of some senior general out of the history books.
  'Not available, Leutnant,' said Brand. He didn't smile, but he let them see
  that he did riot intent to apologize. 'Leutnant' that was the brownshirt
  style. Not 'Herr Leutnant'- that damned nonsense was finished.
  'The commander's written orders were that one motor vehicle was to be kept
  for the transport staff.'
 'It was in use.'
 'For what purpose?,
 'I was visiting the bridging unit.'

               243
         Nineteen hundred and twenty-nine

 'Why?'
 'To inspect them. Most of them are my men.'
 'Are your AK men all brownshirts, Brand?'
  'Yes, Leutnant, and all from Bavaria.' It wasn't exactly true -nearly
  half of them were from the Ruhr - but he knew that the reply would get
  up the nose of these two Prussians. Brand saw no reason to stand rigidly
  to attention. As the AK commander, he should be treated with respect. He
  slapped his leg with the swagger stick. 'The SA now outnumber the army,'
  he told them gratuitously.
 Von Kleinclorf said nothing. Horner's face was set like granite.
  'When we come to power,' Brand told them, 'the Sturmabteilung will become
  the nation's only bearer of arms. We will be a new sort of army.
  'Will it cleliberatel~ disobey orders, as you did today?' von Kleindorf
  asked, and immediately wished he hadn't as he saw the satisfaction in
  Brand's face.
  Brand gave no reply, and with ill-concealed anger von Kleinclorf
  dismissed him. Brand saluted with a studied care that was insolent. He
  had no regrets. He didn't mind if his deliberate flouting of orders had
  caused the failure of the river crossing. The sun was sinking fast for
  Prussian stereotypes like Horner and von Kleindorf. A National Socialist
  order was about to dawn. Brand had the warm glow of the believer, and
  such men suffer no self-doubts.
  It took until nightfall for the battlefield to be restored to the
  villagers who lived upon it. Not knowing how narrowly their homes had
  escaped extinction by fire, the residents of the cottages near the
  disused ferry gave the tired soldiers bits of hard home-made sausage and
  old dark bread.
  Oberleutnant Alex Horner went to report to the 'divisional commander'-
  Captain Niemann, a severe-looking man who'd ended the war as a hussar
  colonel and had taken the demotion to stay in the peacetime army. Then
  they began the night march back to barracks. It wa,; a long journey.'l
  he men soon settled into that march time that trained infantry can
  sustain for hour after hour. The crunch of jackboot on loose-surface
  country road produced a rhythm that lulled the mind, and dulled the aches
  and pains that more casual walking br,,ngs.
  The rearmost infanti yman carried the oil lantern that regulations
  prescribed a,, a necessary precaution against traffic accidents, but the
  moon pro-, ided light ~nough for Oberleutnant Horner and von Kleinclorf
  to see the whole column as they trudged on through

               244
          'Colonel Horner contmanding'

 villages where barking dogs greeted them as strangers. Horner and von
 Kleindorf were mounted on chargers - fine, big beasts that snorted and
 sneezed and danced and did not know that their role in war was to be
 confined to the symbolic and ornamental.
  'Did you know that Kerl?' von Kleindorf asked, dropping, for the first
  time since the exercise had begun, the role of chief of staff.
 'I was with him in the war,' replied Alex Horner.
  'He was in your regiment? An officer?' said von Kleindorf incredulously.
  Brand's surly manner and coarse accent were an unlikely asset for the
  mess of a smart regiment.
 'No, I was in his,' said Horner.
 'Oh, the Bavarian Reserves you told me about.'
 'That's it,' said Horner.
  'Poor you,' said von Kleindorf. 'You don't think those SA ruffians could
  really become a part of the army, do you?'
  'Not while I'm in it,' said Horner. All the time he was thinking of the
  days to come: inquests, post-mortems, reports and conferences. Alex
  Horner's failed river crossing was unlikely to come out well.
  'What battalion is this?' It was the voice of Captain Niemann, out of the
  darkness. He was moving up to the front of his 'division'.
  'First Heavy Panzer Battalion,' said Horner, keeping to the terminology
  of the exercise. 'Colonel Homer commanding.' It was absurd, of course.
  He looked at his marching column: in manpower it was scarcely a company.
  With an army of only a hundred thousand men it would be difficult - after
  finding the support and lines of communication troops - to put together
  a couple of decent infantry divisions, let alone the panzer units,
  motorized infantry, and so on that this exercise envisaged. But if
  Captain Niemann was determined to hold on to his phantom division until
  the last moment, who could really blame him?
 'Goodnight, Herr General,' said Horner.

        Taurfiwncil adviser resi . gns

 Veronica had kept the Wini ers' house true to the splendid fin de SiMe
 style. Over the years there had been new furniture, furnishings and
 carpets, but the style was unchanged. Now, as the 1930s approached, she
 was conscious of the way that the gloomy drawing room, of which she'd
 always been so proud, was to her brother's American eyes like a museum.

               245
        Nineteen hundred and twenty-nine

  The windows were heavily draped in yellow silk with chocolatebrown tassels,
  so that only limited daylight could fall upon the Oriental carpets. There
  was scarcely a glimpse of the patterned wallpaper, for the pictures,
  paintings and carefully posed sepia family-portrait photographs were
  crowded together with ornamental plates and fans. Small pieces of
  chinaware, ivory and silver bric-Abrac crowded the huge mirrored
  mantel-shelf, and were carefully arranged on side tables and in
  glass-fronted cabinets, so that Glenn Rensselaer was in constant fear of
  knocking something over.
 'Harald should retire,' Veronica told her brother.
 'He"s only fifty-nine, he's not sick, is he?'
 'He"s tired and he's bored and he's apprehensive.'
 'About the business?'
  'About the world, about Germany, about the things that are happening here.
  Go ahead and smoke, Glenn. I can see you're dying to.'
  'I'm not sure I understand you, sis,' said Glenn Rensselaer. 'Yes, I would
  love to smoke, if you're sure you don't mind.' He reached into the pocket
  of the suit he'd bought specially for this trip. He wanted to look smart
  for his sister, and on the shopwindow dummy this Glenurquhart check looked
  very presentable. But now, on him, it was already baggy and rumpled. He was
  getting out his pipe and tobacco pouch when there was a tap at the door. A
  chambermaid, complete with starched cap and apron, came irf to attend to
  the stove. She fed coal into it and deftly swept the coal dust into a pan
  that she took away with her.
  Only when the servant was gone did Veronica answer. 'Unemployment is on the
  rise again.'
 'Everyone says Germany is boorning.'
  'The boom has ended. Harald is predicting three million unemployed this
  coming winter, and he's usually right about such things. He thinks more
  unemployment will immensely strengthen the communists and the Nazis.'
 'Probably.'
  'And the Nazis are asking Harald for money. He's resisted so far, but most
  of the other big companies are making contributions to them.'
 'Why?'
  'Dori't be so naive, Glenn. Because they don't want the communists to come
  to power and seize the factories. But for Harald there is a further
  complication: he has to consider Peter and Lottie.'

               246
         'Your financial adviser resigns'

  'Well, he won't be helping Lottie and little Helena by financing the
  Nazis and bringing them into power, will he?'
  'The Nazis will list Harald's companies among those with "Jewish
  management" unless he donates a substantial sum to them. That could mean
  boycotts and demonstrations . strikes too, perhaps.'
 'Does Peter know?,
  'Peter is urging Harald to resist, but most of the other directors insist
  upon paying. It could probably be arranged that the payments be
  tax-deductible, so it wouldn't cost the company anything.'
 'Poor Harald.'
  'Until now he's resisted the Nazis, but they are becoming much more
  powerful every week. A severe winter and more unemployment might change
  everything for the worse.'
 'Has Harald spoken to Pauli about this?'
  'For heaven's sake, Glenn. You must promise - Harald would die rather
  than ask Pauli for any sort of favour. The argument they had that night
  at Pauli's birthday party has never really healed.'
  'I'm sure Pauli bears his father no ill will,' Glenn told her. 'The other
  night, at the party for the Danzigers, they seemed to be on good terms.'
 'Pauli forgets the hurtful things he says, but his father doesn't.'
  Glenn puffed away at his pipe. 'Back home they think that at long last
  Germans have come to see the advantages of parliamentary democracy.'
  'That will take a long time. The single voice of a strong emperor has
  always been to the German taste. Germans find the argument and conflict
  of our sort of politics confusing and disturbing. They don't like debate:
  they want decisions.'
  'You should know them by now, sis. You've lived here a long time.'
 'Too long, perhaps,' sht, said.
 'Is that so?'
 'I've been thinking about going home, Glenn.'
  'The folks would be bowled over. Dad's seventy-eight this year-, I think
  he's given up all hope of seeing you again.'
 'Tell me about Dad.'
 'Dot looks after him.'
 'What is she like?'
  'I don't know. Sometimes I think she's a schemer. She had her three sons
  take the family Dame, and Dad put a lot of money into that bank to get
  partnerships for them. Her eldest son's little boy stays

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 with us, and Dad seems more interested in him than in my little boy.' He
 looked up and smiled at her. It was not like Glenn to express any kind of
 grievance. 'Yes, you should go horne.'
  'Perhaps I was wrong to wait so long, but at previous times I could see no
  way. . . .'
 'A visit, you mean?'
  'I don't know, Glenn. I love Harald and the two boys. And Lottie has become
  like a daughter to me. I would miss them all so much. And yet . . .'
 'What is it, sis?'
 'I don't want to die here, Glenn.'
  'Die? What are you talking about? You are only' - his brow furrowed as he
  quickly added five years to his own age to calculate -'fifty-four. You have
  half a lifetime in front of you.'
  'I know. I have no fears of death, or any premonition. It's just that I'd
  like to five out my old age in America. Does that sound crazy?'
  'No, sis. Of course I understand. I know many people who feel exactly that
  way after living overseas. Have you spoken to Harald about this?'
 'He'd be so terribly hurt, Glenn.'
 'Butyou are unhappy.'
 'Yes, I arn.'
 'Would Harald go, too?'
  'Not for a prolonged stay. In America he'd be like a fish out of water. His
  English is not very good, and he remains the most German German I've ever
  met.'
  It was not the first time that Veronica had discussed with Glenn the idea
  of returning to America. Each time she did so it was from some new aspect,
  and each time Glenn started off believing her. But, as in previous
  discussions of this kind, Glenn ended in doubt. Eventually he decidedihat
  she would never go back. She lacked the desire, the energy, that would be
  needed to sever herself, however briefly, from her life here in Berlin.
  But Glenn saw how much his sister needed this curious fantasy about going
  home, and he was prepared to indulge her, despite the way her conversation
  went round and round,,the deceptions and the self-deceptions and the
  devious ways she invented to temporize. He resolved that next time they
  spoke he'd confront her with the contradictions.

                248
          'Your financial adviser resigns'

 But the next conversation that Glenn Rensselaer had with his sister was
 under very different circumstances. It took place on the afternoon of
 Friday, October 25. Rensselaer had arrived at the emergency department of
 the Charit6 Hospital in response to a telephone call from the manager of
 the Adlon Hotel. A policeman had come to the hotel to bring news that one
 of their guests - Herr Simon Danziger - had been injured in a traffic
 accident.
  It was said by people who know about such matters that Potsdamer Platz
  had become the busiest traffic intersection in the whole of Europe. Cars,
  delivery vans and heavy trucks entered the Platz: from a dozen different
  directions. Navigating across this mad whirlpool of motors and
  horse-drawn carts came the clanking streetcars, and everywhere deft
  cyclists and even more nimble pedestrians dashed through the torrent of
  traffic.
  It was here - at the intersection with the recently named Friedrich Ebert
  Strasse - that, at eleven-fifty that Friday morning, Herr Simon Danziger
  was struck by a horse-drawn dray laden with twenty-six barrels of dark
  beer from the Neuk6lln brewery.
  He was still conscious, and in great pain, while they rushed him to the
  Charit6 Hospital in the taxi from which he'd just alighted. He was
  prepared hurriedly and taken to an operating theatre on the top floor for
  major surgery.
  The complex that is the Charit6 sprawls across Berlin's Mitte. These
  forbidding old buildings make up a grey stone fortress wedged between the
  slow-moving oily water of the river Spree and the canal. There was no
  waiting room, and Glenn Rensselaer spent the first half-hour standing
  awkwardly amongst the outpatients in a cold and draughty upstairs
  corridor. From here he enjoyed the view of a cobbled courtyard where two
  mechanics delved into the entrails of a Magirus ambulance.
  Glenn Rensselaer felt conspicuous in his long fur-lined overcoat,
  homburg, grey gloves, and silver-topped cane. The poorly dressed people
  on the benches wet e hunched against the cold and stiff with their aches
  and pains. They looked at him with detached curiosity, as they looked at
  the senior medical staff who strode through, or at the sheet-covered
  trolleys that came clanking past them, dragged by men in soiled white
  coats and glistening rubber aprons. Only two greenuniformed policemen
  seemed relaxed and at ease. They stood by the door, smoking cigarettes
  that they concealed inside half-clenched fists, and blew smoke at the
  ceiling.
 The next person to arrive was his sister, Veronica. She wore a

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 magnificent sable coat that was adorned, as was her hat, with flecks of
 newly fallen snow. She was escorted by a fluttering little hospital
 official. He wore a frock coat, carried wads of official- looking papers,
 called tier Frau Doktor Winter, and bowed his head continually to expose a
 balding patch on the top of his skull.
  Veronica called to her brother and he joined them, to be shown into a warm
  office where there was the privacy and comfort that the fluttery man felt
  should be provided for the highly esteemed Frau Doktor.
 'Are you family?' the fluttery man inquired.
 'No, not family,' said Glenn.
  'No, of course not, of course not!'said the man, and was especially
  flustered at the idea of it.
  Veronica was seated in the soft visitors' chair, and Glenn in the swivel
  chair behind the desk, when he returned to bring them the duty surgeon's
  prognosis. After a long description of Danziger's mortal injuries - a
  litany that Glenn couldn't understand and to which Veronica closed her ears
  - he said that there was no chance that Herr Simon Danziger could survive.
  fie would expire, the man predicted - looking down mournfully at the papers
  in his hands -within the hour.
 'Poor devil!' said Glenn Rensselaer when the man had departed.
 'He was so full of life,' said his sister.
 'I was thinking of the driver of the beer dray.'
 'Yes, for him, too,' said Veronica doubtfully.
  There was a long silence. 'Danziger went bust,' said Rensselaer. 'The first
  telegrams went out last Saturday night, calling in the margins. Danziger
  had sunk every last red cent into stocks on the New York exchange. We
  talked about it on the airship coming over.'
  'The "crash" - I saw it in the papers, but I don't really understand . . .'
  'Suckers kept buying up and up and up and up it went. It had to go b-mg,
  and it crashed last weekend.'
 'And they didn't know it was about to happen?'
  'Everyone on the exchange knew, unless they were plumb stupid. But the
  market makes money on every deal. The brokers will come out of this
  disaster richer than ever.'
  Veronica said, 'You'rc saying Mr Danziger deliberately stepped in front of
  ... No, Glenn. no. That's too awful.'
  'I sure won't say it tij Lottie or to Mrs Danziger, but I'd bet a million
  bucks against ar old shirt-stud that that's the truth of it.'

                250
         'Your financial adviser resigns'

 'He was bankrupt?'
  'Just about, I'd say. He told me that he'd scraped together every last
  asset he could find to play the market. Dad sent me a long telegram when
  the markei closed on Monday. Told me what was happening behind the
  scenes. The time difference meant that I had the telegram soon after
  midnight.'
 'Did you tell Mr Danziger?'
  'I phoned him at the Action and read Dad's telegram to him, leaving out
  the names of Wall Street tycoons who'd died by their own hand since the
  news broke It was about one o'clock in the morning, Tuesday. I must have
  woken him up. He just grunted a thanks. I guess he'd already heard from
  his own broker. It was too late to do anything by then. That was the last
  time I spoke with him. I said to call me if I could help but he never
  did.'
 'It's ghastly,' said Veronica. 'How will Mrs Danziger manage?'
  'I don't know. All she has is some shares in a movie studio, and that's
  not an asset easy to dispose of,' said Glenn. He was thinking of his
  nephew Peter. If there was no prospect of an inheritance for Lottie,
  Peter was going to be tied to his father, and the safe, well-paid job
  there.
  'I wonder it' she'll have enough money to settle her bill at the Adlon.
  I'd better offer her those two rooms on the third floor. Will she want
  the funeral here m Berlin, do you think?'
 'I don't think she has a tot of choice.'
  Mrs Danziger would have preferred to take her husband's body back to
  America, and Lottie wanted her father buried with appropriate ceremony
  in the old Jewish cemetery in the Grosse Hamburger Strasse, behind the
  Rote Rathaus, where the great Moses Mendelssohn was interred, but both
  ideas proved impracticable. Instead the funeral was held at the big
  Jewish cemetery at Weissensee.
  Some people said that Pauli cared too much for his job with the Nazis to
  be seen at a Jewish funeral, but they were wrong. Pauli attended the
  funeral, dres~ied soberly in the dark suit he wore when attending the
  criminal courts. What's more, Pauli took a few moments at the funeral to
  do his father a favour. He told his father, in strictest confidence, that
  the Nazis would be more than satisfied with a quarter of the amount of
  money they were demanding from Winter Metal Alloys.
  Mrs Danziger was pleased to accept Veronica's offer of accommodation, and
  Glenn Rensseliter settled her bill at the Adlon. She stayed

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 until after Christmas, not wishing to face the California party season
 alone.
  It was a few days before Christmas when Mrs Danziger had a letter from the
  insurance company that covered her husband's life policy. It said that they
  would pay. Glenn Rensselaer breathed a sigh and flushed down the toilet the
  five-dollar bill that Mr Danziger had sent him just before he died. Had the
  assessors seen the cryptic note that accompanied it - 'Dear Glenn, Your
  financial adviser resigns as of today. Please give my apologies to all
  concerned with the results. I did the best I could - Simon Danziger'- they
  might not have been so willing to categorize his death as accidental.
  By the time Mrs Danziger took the train to Bremerhaven to catch the S.S.
  Albert Ballin for New York, some of Harald Winter's pessimistic forecasts
  were coming true. And the effects of the New York crash came rippling into
  the European countries, so that their already unstable economies were
  buffeted by the storms.
  In the month of January 193o alone, the number of unemployed Germans rose
  from one and a half million to almost two and a half. In Berlin the
  factories were laying off workers at such a rate that in many parts of the
  city the streets were crowded with unemployed. They stood and stared
  vacantly about them, not knowing how to cope with their misery. Farms
  within walking distance of the city, as so many farms still were, had armed
  men guarding their crops.
  The coalition government declared that there was not enough money to pay
  the normal unemployment benefit without incurring a deficit of about a
  hundred million dollars. This financial and political crisis came soon
  after the tenth anniversary of Germany's changeover to parliamentary
  democratic government. It wasn't easy to argue with those who said that the
  communists or the Nazis would do better.

 Almost three years earlier, in 1927, the hundredth anniversary of the death
 of Ludwig van Beethoven, Artur Schnabel had created a sensation in Berlin by
 playing the complete Beethoven piano sonatas. It took seven Sunday-afternoon
 concerts, and Schnabel performed them in the Volksbiihne, a theatre club
 created by means of tradeunion financing and more usually associated with
 the radical left.
  Schnabel's great success had an effect upon the Berlin musical
  establishment It changed Erich Hennig's life. In February 1930, largely as
  a result of the continuous prompting of his wife, Lisl, Erich Hennig played
  Mozart piano sonatas before an invited audience.

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          'Your financial adviser resigns'

  In some ways it was a mistake. Erich Hermig did not have the subtle and
  disciplined lyricism that Mozart requires. Hennig was at his best
  supplying the more robust demands of Beethoven's piano concertos. But
  Hermig's two concerts were by no means a failure. His mother-in-law sent
  the invitations, and Frau Wisliceny was still a name to be reckoned with
  in the bitter and Byzantine power struggle that had always characterized
  Berlin's cultural life.
  Those who might have dared to condemn Hermig's interpretation of Mozart
  were not present at the performances, and any comment they made was
  condemned as sour grapes. Hennig's Mozart was competent and charming and
  provided a turnin point in Hermig's .9
 career. Until now he'd worked for a music publisher, but now he was signed
 by an agent. With three pupils, and the promise of more performance fees,
 Hermig left his dull office job and became a professional musician.
  And as his career changed, so did his political allegiances. Until this
  time he'd been a lefi-wing radical, regularly to be seen at Communist
  Party meetings. But beginning with his Mozart recitals, Hermig's
  political activities were less in evidence. The harnmerand-sickle badge
  was not displayed in the lapel of the black suit he wore when at the
  keyboard, and the bright-red tie was replaced by a quieter, patterned one
  chosen by his mother-in-law.
  Other, more far-reaching changes dated from Hermig's Mozart recitals in
  February 1930. It was Pauli's presence at the recital hall off Ku-damm
  that caused Frau Wisliceny to invite him regularly to her house. Not
  always to her'salon, for Pauli Winter was not, and would never claim to
  be, an intellectual. 'Mozart is about as far as I go,' he told Frau
  Wisliceny, and anyone else who tried to discuss music with him.
  He was welcome in many places nowadays, for Pauli Winter was not the
  little Pauli who had marched off to war. For one thing, he went
  everywhere nowadays in a smart black Horch convertible. On weekdays, on
  official business, the car was driven by a stern-faced young man wearing
  shiny high boots, breeches and a brown shirt with swastika armband.
  Pauli Winter enjoyed going to Frau Wisliceny's gatherings. She chose her
  guests carefully, so they were always people who reacted favourably to
  Pauli's jokes and chatter. Usually, after tea, Frau Wisliceny would
  persuade him to do some conjuring tricks. He'd feign reluctance, but she
  knew he enjoyed doing the tricks, because he always managed to have some
  new ones prepared. And his tricks

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 were never silent. Four kings inserted into a deck became 'four
 Turkish-carpet merchants arriving at their warehouse'. There was always a
 funny story, and the end of the trick brought not only a gasp of surprise
 but also a hoot of laughter.
  Pauli had the enviable ability to walk into a room filled with strangers
  confident that he'd make new friends: and he almost invariably did. Pauli
  could peel layers from a stranger and release some surprising prisoner
  trapped inside a reputation. No one but Pauli could have persuaded the
  pompous Erich Hennig to play a silly song like 'Yes, We Have No Bananas'!
  and have got a revered actor like Emil Jannings to sing the nonsensical
  words.
  Pauli's enemies said that he always wanted easy praise and appreciation.
  His father, on more than one occasion, warned him with that classic
  aphorism 'Applause is the spur of noble minds, and the aim of weak
  ones,'but Pauli was undaunted. Pauli was Pauli, and his nature was not so
  easily changed.
  As with most successful entertainers, his disarming casualness concealed
  the great care with which he watched his audience. He knew which people
  present gave themselves to his jokes, tricks and stories and which were
  determined to remain unimpressed. So he knew that Inge enjoyed them more
  than most.
  And Frau Wisliceny appreciated the sight of Inge laughing. If only Lottie
  had not had her wedding reception at the Wisliceny house. She was their
  guest and there was no avoiding it, but the preparations for the wedding
  had turned the knife that was in Inge's heart. Her mother had wept for her,
  and began to doubt if Inge would ever be happy again. It was weeks before
  she would even leave the house, and her mother suffered with her. It was an
  agony greatly worsened by the unwillingness of either woman to admit that
  it existed. Sometimes Frau Wisficeny wondered if Peter Winter ever realized
  the consurning adoration that Inge had for him. Perhaps he did, for he
  seemed to contrive that he and Inge didn't meet at dinners or parties or
  any other gatherings.
  So Frau Wisliceny was pleased to see that Pauli enjoyed entertaining Inge
  and some of his tricks seemed to be prepared for her alone. And when Inge
  went, several times a week, to the Romanische Caf6 to join Pauli in his
  frugal lunch, or even when the lunches became less frugal and of longer
  duration, no one gave it any serious attention. Frau Wisliceny was relieved
  to see that Inge was once again taking an interest in the outside world.
  She guessed - rightly -that many of those early conversations were devoted
  exclusively to discussions about Peter

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         'Your financial adviser resigns'

  It helped, of course. Pauli was a good listener, and it was far easier to
  explain her love of Peter to him, for he loved his brother, too. Neither of
  them considered any possible romantic developments of their meetings, even
  when the talk of Peter had dwindled to almost nothing. They enjoyed each
  other's company, and everyone knew that Pauli had lots of girlfriends:
  noisy, pretty, gregarious girls, none of them like the serious, beautiful
  and intellectual Inge. She wasn't Pauli Winter's sort of girl. And yet
  Pauli was not blind to Inge's beauty. Her green, luminous eyes that could
  look so deep and so lonely, her long neck, long slim arms and pale
  unblemished skin like porcelain made her someone he was proud to be seen
  with. And Inge discovered in Pauli someone she'd never known about, a man
  who was able to make her forget for a moment the ache she felt for Peter.
  It was Pauli's blonde waitress at the Romanische CaJ56 who changed
  everything. She regularly exchanged vulgar jokes with all her male
  customers. One day she greeted Inge and Pauli with a typical Berlin joke
  that speculated on what they would be doing that afternoon following their
  lunch of a dozen oysters each and a bottle of Sekt.
  Pauli was embarrassed but to his surprise Inge responded by telling her in
  Berlin argot just how much she was looking forward to just such an outcome.
  A new relationship began immediately. The following day they went to
  Friedhinder Brothers, next door to the Hotel Bristol, and chose a ring. And
  then to the'tea dance'at the roof garden of the Eden Hotel. Pauli could
  dance well when he wanted to, and now he wanted to. Within two weeks Inge
  and Pauli were officially engaged, and their marriage followed in May.

 There was no opposition from the families. Any reservations that the
 Wislicenys might have entertained about Pauli's philistine tastes or
 political affiliations were entirely removed by Inge's obvious happiness.
 And all the Winter family agreed that Inge Wisliceny was a catch beyond any
 that Pauli could rightfully have expected.
  Peter's wife, Lottie, was determined to remain Inge's friend, and despite
  the reservations that Inge at first showed, it was Lottie, far more than
  Frau Wisliceny, who helped Inge plan the wedding.
  It was a spectacular event. Pauli's friend Alex Horner pulled strings at
  Bendlerstrasse and arranged for Pauli Winter to be registered as an
  Oberleutnant of the Reserve so that he could have a military guard of
  honour at the ceremony. Each young officer was matched with a beautifully
  dressed bridesmaid, in the traditional

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         Nineteen hundred and m~enty-nine

 German style. The couple came down the steps of the church under a canopy
 ofdrawn swords. This was Lottie's idea: since, as she pointed out, such
 a ceremony demanded that Pauli wear an army uniform, he could not possibly
 get married wearing the brown shirt and swastika of the SA, in which he'd
 recently been given honorary rank. Not even Dr Goebbels, the Berlin party
 leader, would insist that anything could be more glorious for a German
 than to be married in army officer's uniform. And Pauli, with his
 wonderful blond hair, was the archetypal 'Aryan' that Nazi mythology so
 admired.
  Lottie and Inge had worked hard at the guest list to see that the
  reception was not only for the family but also a reunion of Pauli's old
  friends. There were men who'd been cadets at Lichterfelde with him, half
  a dozen men of his 1918 storm company, as well as close friends like
  Fritz Esser.
  The presents were in keeping with the grandeur of the ceremony and
  reception. Richard Fischer gave the couple a twenty-place antique Meissen
  dinnerservice that had been in his family for several generations. Inge
  had refused Richard's marriage proposal, and now she wondered if this was
  his way of telling her that he'd never marry anyone else.
  Harald and Veronica Winter gave them a large Mercedes tourer, as well as
  having the house on the Obersalzberg extensively extended and redecorated
  in preparation for their honeymoon there. Until this time it had been
  little more than a hunting lodge, with heavy rustic furniture and cheap
  printed fabrics. But now it became a country house, with a large dining
  room, a huge sitting room and no fewer than five small but comfortable
  bedrooms. And, wonder upon wonder, Veronica, using the cheque sent by her
  parents, had insisted upon an example of transatlantic profligacy: each
  bedroom had its own bathroom! This extraordinary extravagance had made
  the house one of the wonders of the Obersalzberg. Pauli took great
  pleasure in showing his house to his bride, and to his great delight and
  Veronica's relief, she fell in love with it. She cherished it, and its
  proximity to the holiday home that Adolf Hitler used, and made Pauli
  promise to take her there regularly in winter and in summer, too.

               256
           1930
            A family Chn'stmas

 The sound of a motorcycle engine carries for miles amongst the high
 mountains of the Obersalzberg. Lottic Winter heard it first - her hearing
 was almost superhuman - and when she went to the window and moved aside the
 curtain, she saw the motorcyclist's headlight miles down below them, on the
 Berchtesgaden road. Inge, Pauli and Peter watched her cupping her hands
 round her face to see into the darkness.
  'Are you expecting a visitor?' Lottie asked without turning away from the
  window.
  The question remained unanswered for a moment; then Inge replied. 'It could
  be going to the pension, the Tfirken Hotel, or to one of the farms.'
  'It's coming here,' sa,,d Lottie. She shuddered. She had a premonition that
  it was a inessenger bringing bad news.
  'I can't think who it could be,' said Inge. She, too, was now convinced
  that the motorcycle was coming to them. She switched out the light and
  pulled back the red silk curtain. Now through the windows they could see
  the mountain peaks, the snow lit by the waning moon. In the air there were
  snowflakes. For most of the year it was like this: the wind blew the snow
  off the mountains, so that the air was never completely free of whirling
  crystals.
  It was Christmas 1930 when Pauli and Inge brought Lottie and Peter to the
  Obersalzberg, and this time their most famous neighbout was in residence
  nearby. Since 1923 Adolf Hitler had been a regular visitor to this small
  mountainside community in the shadow of the Hohe G611 near Berchtesgaden.
  He'd fled here after the putsch; upon his release from Landsberg Prison,
  he'd come here to finish writing Mein Kampf. Now he'd decided to have a
  residence permanently available here and had rented a modest chalet from
  his half-sister.

                257
          Nineteen hundred and thirty

  Suddenly Adolf Hitler had become an important political leader. At the
  elections in September, Hitler had won six and a half million votes. It
  increased the Nazi Party's twelve seats in the Reichstag to a staggering
  107 seats. After the Social Democrats, the Nazis were the most powerful
  political force in Germany. Since the election small groups of visitors -
  having made a special journey here - would sometimes linger at the curve in
  the road below the Hotel Tfirken, hoping to catch a glimpse of this fellow
  who called himself the Fdhrer.
  The world press took notice. In Britain, The Times, the Sunday Express, and
  the Daily Mail immediately published interviews with him. Hitler declared
  himself a bulwark against Bolshevism and warned the British that they would
  be militarily endangered by the Soviet Union if Germany fell to the
  communists.
  Since his unsuccessful Munich putsch, Hitler always recognized how much he
  would need the support of the German army if he was ever to come to power.
  So, within a few days of the September election, Hitler promised that under
  a Nazi regime the army would become more powerful and more important and
  better equipped than ever before. As always, there was something in his
  promises for everyone except the Jews and the communists.
  Pauli and Inge's mountainside house was higher than the Fiffirer's Berghof
  and Inge usually saw him when he took his regular stroll in the deep,
  crunchy snow each afternoon before tea. Once, feeling rather foolish, she
  waved to him, but if he saw her he gave no sign of it.
  It was Saturday. Peter and Lottie Winter had arrived the previous day.
  Knowing that Lottie followed the fashions so closely, Inge was wearing the
  new line: a bias-cut grey chiffon dress that fitted close at bust and hips.
  By now Inge's terrible longing for Peter's love had settled down and become
  no more than a dull ache. It was an ache she could live with, and she'd
  been determined to make Peter and Lottie feel at home. That night, after a
  big dinner of roast kid, potato dumplings, and apple pancakes, the cook and
  maid had departed, and the four of them were sitting drinking coffee and
  brandy round the log fire, listening to Peter's stories about Bertolt
  Brecht, the playwright who'd become one of Berlin's most colourful
  anarchistic characters. In October, Brecht had brought a legal action
  against the Nero film company, which was making a movie of his Threepenny
  Opera. The legal proceedings had soon become as entertaining, and far more
  star-studded, than anything Brecht had ever staged. Actors,

                258
            A family Christmas

 actresses, writers, poets and more humdrum types of publicityseekers made
 sure they were seen there, and the newspapers followed every move.
  'Brecht is a monster,' said Peter, who'd directed Brecht through this
  courtroom drama. 'An amusing, talented monster, but a monster just the
  same. When I told him that he couldn't win and advised him to take the
  twenty-five thousand marks they offered as settlement, he called me a
  capitalist lackey, jumped to his feet, and went striding out of court.'
 'But why, couldn't he win?' Pauli asked as one lawyer to another.
  'The film company brought witnesses to tell the court that Brecht had done
  almost no work on the film script, and Brecht provided me with nothing I
  could use to refute it.'
  'Bad luck,' said Pauli. He knew the problem well: there had been some weeks
  when all the clients the Nazi Party provided for him were so guilty that
  nothing could save them. And some clients simply wouldn't help themselves.
  'Oh, Brecht did all riglit,' said Peter. 'I persuaded the film company to
  give him sixteen thousand marks for agreeog not to go to the appeals court.
  I knew they wanted to get the matter conclusively settled quickly, so they
  could start filming.'
  'Isn't he a clever man?' said Lottie, who, sitting alongside her husband on
  the sofa, now hugged him. Inge smiled.
  'I've learned quite a lot about the world of films and theatre in the last
  few years,' said Peter.
 'But not earned much money doing it,' said Pauli.
 'Tell him he should charge them proper fees,' Lottie told Pauli.
  'It's more fun than the work I do for Papa,' said Peter. 'And when
  Mahagonny opened in Leipzig, they gave me the best seats in the house.'
  'I wish we hadn't gone,' said Lottie. 'It was terrible. There were hundreds
  of storm trooper,; outside, waving protest banners and swastika flags. We
  pushed through them, but there were more demonstrations inside. There were
  fistfights in the auditorium, and some people were hurt. The police came:
  lots and lots of them. It was awful.'
  'You shouldn't have gone,' said Pauli. 'Brecht is a communist. He wants
  that sort of trouble: it gets him the publicity he likes.'
 'He's a genius,' said Peter.
  'Maybe lie is a genius,' said Pauli. 'But why doesn't he use his genius to
  say something good about his own country? If Brecht had his way, he'd hand
  Germany over to his friends in Moscow.'

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  'He's trying to stir up our thoughts,' said Peter. 'He likes to be
  provocative.'
  'Let him go and be provocative in Russia and see what happens to him,'said
  Pauli. 'Stalin is murdering his opponents by the hundred thousands. Why
  doesn't your frierd Brecht write a play about that?'
 'Sometimes Brecht goes too far,' agreed Lottie.
 'Perhaps he does,' said Peter.
  It was at this point that Lottie had heard the sound of the motorcycle and
  gone to the window. Their visitor was Fritz Esser, arriving unexpectedly,
  as he always did. Like many of the Nazi Party leaders, he'd leased a
  country house here in Bavaria, but in order to indulge his lifelong passion
  for sailing, he'd chosen the Ammersee, southwest of Munich, It took him
  over an hour on his BMW motorcycle to get to them. And, despite his
  ankle-length brown leather overcoat and fur-trimmed leather helmet, he
  would need some time by the fire and several drinks to thaw out properly.
  Esser was a bearlikt man: big, omnivorous, shaggy-coated and sharp-clawed.
  Also like a bear, he could be elegant, cuddly, fastmoving and vicious. He
  looked at them: the two brothers in dinner suits, and their wives in
  expensive new-fashion dresses. If Esser needed a reminder that his friends
  were from another world - a remote world with its own language, customs and
  costumes - this moment provided that reminder.
  Pauli introduced Fritz Esser to his sister-in-law. They shook hands warily
  'A member of the Reichstag,' repeated Pauli. 'It's wonderful, Fritz.' He
  poured coffee for Fritz and set the rum bottle out with the cream and
  sugar. Fritz preferred rum to brandy.
  'Not even the Fdhrei thought it was possible,'said Esser proudly. 'I wish
  my father had I~ved to see it.'
  'He would have been proud of you,' iaid Peter dutifully, but he couldn't
  really imagint the 'pig man' - a lifelong socialist - being proud of his
  Nazi son, even if that son was now a member of the Reichstag.
  'Everyone was surprised.' He looked up from his drink and met Pauli's eyes.
  They boOl knew that Pauli had suggested that Fritz stand t5or election, and
  Pauli had done endless behind -the -scenes work to persuade the Nazis to
  back him. 'No matter what they said afterwards, everyone was bowled over.
  Before the election they were hoping for hirty seats - . fifty at the very
  most.'
  'And thai's all you would have got under the American or British system of
  first-past-the-post,' said Lottie. 'it was proportional representation that
  inflated your gains.'

               26o
            A family Christmas

  'We're not in America,' said Pauli sharply, as if to guard Fritz against
  his sister-in-law's tongue.
  But Deputy Fritz Esser was far too happy to take offence at such remarks.
  'They never thought I'd do it,' he said. 'They say G6ring helped the Chief
  assign the seats. They gave me my seat in Schleswig-Holstein, not because
  I'm from that part of the world, but because they hadn't the faintest hope
  that anyone could win it for us. Schleswig-Holstein! Good God, what could
  have been more hopeless for the party than that? They've voted liberal ever
  since anyone can remember up there. Everyone was astonished when the
  results came in.'
  He looked round at the others and smiled. Despite his old clothes, and his
  heavy body and darkly menacing eyes, Fritz had an energy and a will power
  that made him attractive to men and to women. Anyone who'd heard his
  speeches glimpsed the captivating quality that was apparent to his friends.
  And yet Fritz never had any lasting relationships with women, as far as
  could be seen. Often he arrived with some glamorous young girl on his arm,
  but none lasted. Sometimes Pauli wondered if there was something wrong with
  Fritz, some flaw in his personality that Fritz could not come to terms
  with.
 'Why did it happen?' asked Peter.
  'No one knows: all the centre parties suffered. Votes went to the
  communists and to us. The unemployed must have been a prime cause, but the
  Chief says that most of the first-time voters preferred us, and there were
  a lot of first-time voters in this election.'
 'Will Hitler work within the parliamentary system?' asked Lottie.
  'Maybe,' said Esser. He poured a generous amount of rum into his coffee and
  added sugar and cream, too.
 'The system you've vowed to destroy,' persisted Lottie.
  'We'll make Germany great again,' said Esser. He didn't want to get into an
  argument with this Jewish American intellectual: she was everything fie
  despised. He was only being polite to her because Pauli was his closest
  friend, adviser and confidant.
  'Then why those disgraceful demonstrations in the Reichstag?' said Lottie.
  'Now, that was Pauli's idea,' said Esser. He looked at Pauli and grinned.
 Pauli flushed. 'It wasn't my idea, Fritz,' he said awkwardly.
  'You're too modest,' said E.sser. He enjoyed teasing Palih. 'On the night
  the election results came over the radio, I said to Pauli how angry the
  FiIhrer was that Prussia had banned the wearing of our

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 uniforms. He would have liked to see our deputies taking their seats in
 proper uniform. The FWuer had said as much to me. He thought itwas
 impossible to get round it, but young Pauli here found a way. He always
 finds a way. Pauli is the smartest fellow we have in the party.'
 'What was Pauli's idea?' said Peter.
 'Taking our uniforms in with us and changing in the washrooms.'
 'Would someone explain it to me?' asked Lottie.
  Quietly Peter said, 'Once inside the building, the delegates enjoy
  parliamentary immunity. No one could stop them from wearing theirNazi
  uniforms, whatever the law says about it.'
  'Itwas a real pantomime,' said Esser proudly. 'We shouted and sang the old
  songs and told them what we thought of them. They tried to get the
  proceedings going, but there were too many of us, and the sight of our
  brown shirts drove them to a frenzy.' He laughed.
 'It sounds stupid,' said Lottie angrily.
  Esser laughed again at her anger, and Pauli laughed too. They were like
  naughty schoolboys. She found it impossible to argue with them. 'It's not
  funny,' she said, but the more angry she became the more they laughed.
  When they were quiet again and Pauli had replenished everyone's drinks,
  Pauli said, 'Have you come to see the Fiffirer, Fritz?'
  'Tomorrow you will be introduced to him,'Fritz Esser announced proudly.
  There was no need to say whom he was talking about: when Fritz spoke of his
  'Chief' - the Fiffirer - there was a special note of respect in his voice.
  'Pauli and Inge, too. He has asked me to arrange it. He wants to meet all
  his neighbours, and of course he knows about Pauli's work in the Berlin
  Gauleiter's office.' He finished his second coffee with rum; this time it
  was almost entirely rum.
  'Does he?' said Inge. She had never had any interest in politics, but now
  that she was married to Pauli she supported the Nazis, for whom he worked.
  And, like any loyal and devoted wife, she wanted her husband's virtues to
  be properly rewarded.
  'We all know what a damned difficult year it's been,' said Fritz, rubbing
  his hands together before warming them again at the fire.
  Inge didn't know. Pauli seldom discussed his work with her. Every night he
  came home looking as if he didn't have a care in the world.
  'First, just after your wedding, when the Fdhrer had his big row with
  Strasser. We were worried, I can tell you!'
  'What was that about?' asked Inge. She looked at Fritz with great interest.
  Inge was a wonderful hostess: she drew people out.

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            A Jamily Christmas

  Fritz knew she was pumping him, but he didn't mind: Inge was pretty and the
  wife ofone ofhis best friends. And the rum was taking effect. 'I was there,
  in the Hotel Sanssouci, when it happened. They nearly came to blows.
  Strasser wants a programme of nationalization of industry and a whole lot
  of things that the communists want. The Chief called Strasser a commie and
  said he wouldn't nationalize Krupps, because government clerks would bring
  it to bankruptcy within a few weeks. It was quite a shouting match. Then a
  couple of days later the Berlin SA went on -strike for more wages. He
  shrugged.
  'What will happen about the SA? I'm so glad Pauli didn't wear brownshirt
  uniform when we got married. There is always so much trouble with them.'
  She looked at Pauli, who smiled but didn't comment.
  'The trouble's not over yet. The Fi1hrer has asked Ernst R61un to take
  command of the SA again.'
 'I thought he went to South America.'
  'Yes, we all thought we'd got rid of the fat swine, but now he's coming
  back.'
 'Pauli hates him.'
  'We all hate him; he's a cunning, deceitful pansy. And now he'll make sure
  all his homosexual friends are promoted back into the SA top ranks. He'll
  make life difficult for his enemies, and I'm one of his enemies.'
 'Why does the FUhrer want to use a man like that?'
  'Since the election, people are joining the party and the brownshirts in
  such numbers that we can hardly cope. With the party that's no real
  problem: we write their names and addresses in a book and they start paying
  us their contributions. But the SA has to be uniformed, trained and
  organized. R6hm knows all about that, so R6hm is the quickest solution to
  an urgent problem.'
 'Is R6hm coming here?'
  'I hope to God he's not. I've got to have a few minutes with the Fdhrer
  tomorrow. I was wondering . . .'
  'A bed for the night? Of course, Fritz. I'll have your bags sent up to the
  comer room, the room with the balcony; you like that one, I know.'
  'Thanks, Inge. Not much baggage on a motorcycle: just the shoulder bag I
  left in the hall.'He finished his third cup ofcoffee and rum and searched
  the podets of his battered tartan, zip-fronted jacket to get cigarettes and
  matches. Pauli - always a good host -
  
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          Nineteen hwtdred and darty

 offered cigars from an inlaid humidor, but Fritz preferred the cheap,
 evil-smelling cigarettes he always smoked.
 'When will we meet him?' Inge asked.
  'Tomorrow, for tea. He's installed his half-sister over there as his
  housekeeper. She used to work as a pastry cook, and she makes the finest
  cream cakes I've ever seen; the Chief is very fond of cream cakes.'
  'Yes, we heard his widowed sister was living there. Angela, is it? Isn't
  there a brother, too?'
  Fritz got up from the fender seat, where he'd been warming himself, and
  gave a little laugh - a snigger almost. 'The Fiffirer's half-brother,
  Alois, is rather a touchy subject, Inge. He's been in and out of prison a
  number of times - some petty theft and then bigamy -and the last we heard
  of him, he's run off to live in England.'
 'The Fijhrer's brother lives in England! That's extraordinary.'
  Fritz looked Inge straight in the eyes. 'Yes, well, it's not something that
  has been given wide publicity, and I'd be obliged if you'd keep it to
  yourself.'
 She touched his arm in a gesture of reassurance. 'Of course, Fritz.'
  'I've become very close to the Chief over the last few years, Inge. I've
  been loyal to him, and he's a mail who respects loyalty. The Chief has a
  lot of good people round him: now more of them than ever, of course. But
  when the Fdhrer has a problem, I'm proud to say he often turns to Fritz
  Esser, And Fritz never lets him down.'
  'And what does Fritz Esser do?' said Inge. 'He goes to Pauli Winter.'
 'Exactly,' said Esser.
  Pauli smiled contentedly. Although he knew it to be a childish thought, he
  allowed himself to contemplate how perfect it would be if they all shared
  a house like this: together always. To be with Inge and Fritz and Peter and
  Lottie all the time was Pauli's idea of heaven.

 Later that night, the two women were tidying the room. They had no hving-in
 staff, and the two young village women who cooked and cleaned for them would
 not arrive until seven-thirty next morning. It being Sunday, they would come
 after Mass.
 'You're not really going, are you, Inge?'
  Inge was plumping up the cushions. She stopped and said, 'To see the
  Fiihrer?'
 'The man is a monster.'
 'So is Brecht. Even Peter said so.'

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  'That's different. Brecht doesn't rail against the Jews and threaten his
  opponents.'
  'But he does, Lottie. Brecht passionately hates everything that I love.
  He despises the soldiers who fought in the war for us. He says horrible
  things about officers, and Pauli and Peter were both officers. He hates
  the Homeland. He hates the church. He hates us!'
  'I shouldn't have come,' said Lottie. It was no good. Inge was one of the
  most intelligent German women she'd ever met, but ...
 'Don't be silly, Lottie darling.'
 'I'm not being silly!' said Lottie, a new, quiet anger in her voice.
  Inge looked at her, not knowing how to deal with her. She'd never seen
  her sister-in-law on the verge of tears before. She'd never guessed that
  there were such strong emotions within her.
  'Did you read the speeches Hitler just made at Offenburg and at the
  University of Erlangen?' Lottie asked her. 'Everyone strives for
  expansion, he told them, and every people strives for world domination.
  World domination! He's a madman, I tell you.'
  'You mustn't take it all so seriously, Lottie,' said Inge, much relieved
  to find that it was nothing more serious than Hitler's rhetoric that had
  upset her. 'It's the sort of thing Germans want to hear. I am a German,
  and I understand these things. Please don't worry yourself.'
 'Perhaps we should go back to Berlin.'
  'Please don't go,' said Inge. 'It's so nice to see Peter and Pauli
  together. And it's Christmai.'
  'What is Christmas to me?' said Lottie. 'I'm a Jew. Or have you forgotten
  that?'

      'This obsessmal hatredfor the Fuhrer'

 Inge's mother-in-law, Veronica Winter, had met Adolf Hitler almost two
 years before. It was also at his house here on the Obersalzberg, and under
 similar circumstances. Veronica thought him a horrible man. He fawned and
 smiled and behaved like the men she'd met at the salons in Vienna,
 hand-kissing men who hung around on the fringes of the art world being
 nice to rich old ladies.
  But Inge and Pauli met a far more confident Hitler. Although the election
  success had not brought power, it had brought him the promise of power.
  There was not much hand-kissing now. They met a middle-aged man with
  unmistakable energy and determination.

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 Not in any way like a peasant, he was obviously urban and quickwitted and
 might have been mistaken for a semiskilled foreman in one of Harald Wintei's
 heavy-engineering faCLories. His carefully parted hair was almost
 unnaturally black, and his eyes were alert, but the colour of his skin was
 grey and unhealthy. He wore a dark double-breasted suit with a Nazi Party
 badge in the wide lapel, and he made anxious little movements all the time:
 hand upon hip, then in pocket, raised fist, pointing finger, and hands
 clasped together.
  Despite the violent and flamboyant speeches he'd made in the period leading
  up to the election, and his more recent ones at Offenburg and Erlangen,
  Hitler was today displaying the face of the respectable statesman
  For working-class audiences and students, Hitler concentrated on what they
  wanted to hear. He promised that everyone must be compelled to work, and
  that all income from investment would be abolished. Workers would nevermore
  be subjected to the 'slavery' of interest repayments. All corporations
  would be nationalized, and department stores would be turned over to
  individual traders. Land would be redistributed to the peasants.
  But. today, for his prosperous neighbours, he talked of the injustice of
  the Versailles Treaty, the cooperation between workers and management that
  would bring a more prosperous Germany. He talked of his love for the
  mountains, his impoverished youth and his ambition to see Germany and
  Austria united.
  Hearing that Pauli Winter had been born in Vienna started the Nazi leader
  on a long, rambling account of his difficult days there. Only one light
  illuminated the darkness: the inspiring career of Karl Lueger, a man Adolf
  Hitler greatly admired. Once he had completed his short eulogy, uniformed
  aides made a passage for him, and the Ribrer moved away without waiting for
  any reaction.
  Inge was thrilled. Years fell away, till her face shone with the excitement
  of a young girl. Nervously site ran her hand up the side of her face and
  back through her short-trimmed hair, holding her hand to her head as if
  trying to awaken herself from a dream.
  There were many people in the chintzy little house with its fretwood and
  dried flowers and gingham. Too many for the cramped rooms, even when chairs
  and tables had been moved to make more space. In the corner was a piano -
  a present from his neighbours the Bechstein farnily - and Hitler sometimes
  played it. Besides aides, cronies, secretaries, bodyguards and hangers-on,
  there was a crush of invited guests. Six of them were newly elected
  deputies, and Fritz

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       'This obsessional hatred for the Fiihrer'

 Esser was amongst these. Inge was interested to catch a glimpse of Hitler's
 half-sister, Frau Angela Raubal. She was a cheerful, matronly woman who,
 Inge guessed from her appearance, had not given up hope of remarriage. Her
 daughter Geli was there, too, and had Inge been even betterat guessing, she
 would have looked more closely at this plump twenty-two-year-old blonde who
 passed round the cream cakes. Before another year had passed, Geli Raubal
 would be found shot dead in Hitler's Munich apartment, with Hitler's
 personal 6.35nim Walther pistol at her side, and be the centre of
 speculation about 'Uncle Alf's' love affairs.
  But, for Pauli, Hitler's half-sister and niece, and all the other local
  residents and high-ranking Nazis, were of only passing interest compared
  with the presence amongst the Fuhrer's guests of Heinrich Brand. Pauli was
  horrified. He'd heard Esser's stories and other reports in the party papers
  of Brand's distinguished career as a brownshirt officer. And Alex Horner
  had told him of his encounter during the military exerciscs. But to see
  Brand face to face again was another matter.
  An SA Obersturmbarmlillirer now - a lieutenant colonel - and smartly turned
  out in beautifully cut riding breeches, and a wellfitting brown shirt on
  the pocket of which was an Iron Cross first class, exactly like the one the
  Fiffirer wore. Had Pauli been prepared for this confrontation. it might
  have been endurable, but the sudden sight of his old tormentor made his
  stomach turn.
  Pauli and Brand shook hands. Only a flicker of a smile from Brand revealed
  the hatred that he wanted made obvious to the younger man.
  Obersturmbannfiihrer Brand, explained Fritz Esser, was setting up the
  headquarters for the return of the newly appointed brownshirt leader Ernst
  Rohm.
  'Crazy Heini' was forty-five years old and, like his Fiffirer, had grown
  less and less crazy with every step up the ladder of fortune. Brand had
  aged in the way that most people aged. His hair was grey and so was his
  moustache, but his eyes were the same as they always had been in so many of
  Pauli's worst nightmares. It wasn't just that they were set rather close to
  his thin, bony nose; the eyes were hard and glasslike, almost alive but not
  quite, moving always, and blinking like the eyes of a very expensive doll.
  Pauli made polite comments about the important new post and how much he
  looked forward to meeting him again in Berlin. Brand touched his moustache
  and stared at Pauli, responding to his

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 politeness with no more than a grunt. Pauli became nervous; he desperately
 wanted a cigarette, but they'd all been warned that the Fiffirer didn't
 permit smoking.
  Fritz Esscr was suddenly at his elbow, persuading Pauli to repeat a joke
  that ended in a long speech in Austrian dialect, which Pauli could imitate
  so perfectly. He was halfway through before he remembered Hitler's strongly
  accented speech. He looked across the uncomfortably crowded room. It was
  damned hot in here, what with the woodstove and all these people. Hitler
  was at the window, surrounded by nodding, smiling sycophants. He was out of
  earshot, but Pauli had the feeling that this unfortunate joke would be
  repeated to the Fiffirer. And Hitler's contempt for lawyers was well known.
  When they got back home, it was dark. It got dark early in the mountains;
  that was the worst part of being there in the winter. Inge went upstairs to
  change into a dinner dress. Pauli poured himself a big glass of cognac and
  drank it too quickly. The shock of seeing Brand again had upset him. He
  decided that he wanted to talk about it to someone, and the depth of his
  fear was not something he wanted to reveal to Fritz Esser. Esser respected
  Pauli, and Pauli was determined to keep it that way. Pauli looked down at
  his hands. They were shaking so much that he'd already spilled some of his
  drink in pouring it out. Perhaps he should go and see one of these damned
  psychologists that were so fashionable nowadays.
  But first he would speak about it with his brother. Peter understood him
  better than anyone. Peter wouldn't laugh at his fears. Peter would reassure
  him and give him advice, sensible advice, not the sanctimonious sermon that
  Papa delivered whether asked or not. It must have been fate that brought
  Peter here at this time of need. fie went up to the big guest bedroom, the
  one with the balcony that provided a view of the legendary Untersberg. When
  there was no response to his knock, he tried the door. It opened, but Peter
  wasn't in, and neither was Lottie. And there was no sign of any of their
  clothes or personal possessions. On the dressing table was an envelope. He
  opened it
  It was a polite note, thanking Pauli and Inge for their hospitality and the
  extra work the visit had made for them. There was an appropriate gratuity
  for the servants. But they'd had to return to Berlin suddenly. Peter was
  sure that Pauli would understand.
 Pauli read the note again, and then a third time. He could hear

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       'This obsessional hatred for the Fiihrer'

 Inge's bathwater running: it was no use going to her. He loved her dearly,
 but Inge wouldD't understand: he needed Peter. Pauli wanted to shout aloud,
 or at least to sob. But Pauli's days of crying had ended back when he used
 to cry himself to sleep in the cadetschool barracks at Lichterfelde.
  He went downstairs and had another drink. It always took Inge a long time
  to bath, change and rearrange her hair. She liked to have some time to
  herself. When she camc downstairs again, the fire was almost dead and Pauli
  was asleep on the sofa. She shook him, but the cognac decanter was empty
  and he was very drunk.
  'Are you hungry, Pauli? There is ham and chicken.' She touched his arm to
  wake him. 'You haven't changed.... Pauli!' She switched the table lamp on.
  'Pauli!'
 'Peter's gone home,' he mumbled.
 'Yes, I know.'
 'I love Peter,' said Pauli drunkenly.
  'Yes, you love your father and you love Peter. But can't you see that
  that's just your way ofsaying how much you depend on them?'
 'I do depend on them.'
  'Then stop it! Pull yourself together, Pauli. Be a man. Start living your
  own life and making up your own mind about everything. I hate to see you
  abasing yoursell to Peter. You're as good as he; better, in fact.'
 'Why did he go?' asked Pauli.
  'They were angry about our visit to the Fiffirer,'said Inge. 'I heard him
  on the phone ordering a car. It was Lottie, of course. She has this
  obsessional hatred for the FOhrer.'
  'You should have told me,' said Pauli. 'I wouldn't have gone if I'd known
  it would make that much difference.'
  'Yes, yes, yes,' said Inge. 'You would have refused to go, and what would
  have happened to us then?' She knelt on the carpet beside him and, holding
  him very tight, she kissed him. She loved this clumsy, silly Pauli, who
  never sent her flowers, never remembered her birthday, took her love for
  granted, as he expected her to do with his love. She loved him so much
  because he needed her to care for him. Germany had millions of unemployed,
  and many of them were lawyers. She wished Pauli would realize how lucky he
  was to have his fat salary and good job with the Nazis. It was all right
  for Lottie to air her opinions about what should be done, but her husband,
  Peter, had the security of the Winters' family business. Sometimes Inge

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 resented the way that Pauli had been treated by his family. 'Pauli,
 darling. I love you, I love you. ~

 270
       Mi9325
       'Was that more shouting in the street?'

 In Berlin- Sch6ne berg, the evening of Sunday, April to, 1932, was
 miserable. The sky had been overcast all day, it had got dark early, and the
 unrelenting rain was enough to persuade many people not to vote in the
 second presidential election. The whole city was plastered with election
 posters. Under the light of the streetlamps were regiments of Hiders and
 rows of swastikas, shiny now in the persistent downpour. There weren't many
 people about, except for small squads of uniformed SA men, whose studded
 jackboots could be heard on the street, and sometimes their strident voices,
 too, as they sang their songs and looked for Jews to beat up or communists
 to battle with.
  In fashionable Haberlandstrasse, a few houses from the apartment where
  Albert Einstein - the world's most famous scientist - had lived, the Isaac
  Volkmann,; were preparing for a dinner party. The host was Isaac Volkmann,
  a prematurely balding thirty-six-year-old who would have been strikingly
  handsome but for the nose broken in a boxing match at school. Even so, his
  damaged nose, and a scar on his cheek, gave him the look of a slightly
  overweight pugilist, which some people, including his wife, thought
  attractive. But Volkmann was not a professional fighter, he wzs a
  fashionable dentist, whose clients included many of Berlin's most famous
  film and theatre stars. His particular skills included the fitting of
  beautifully made crowns and the general ability, by means of all sorts of
  magic tricks, to make a mouthful of crooked, yellow, neglected teeth into
  something even, white and beautiful.
  Frau Volkmann - a petite young woman with carefully plucked eyebrows and a
  sensuous mouth that too often pouted - was twelve years younger than her
  huiband and still found the role of hostess somewhat stressful. For that
  reason the Volkmanns would often take their guests to a restaurant. Lately
  they had been favouring the newly

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 furbished Restaurant Traube on Leipziger Strasse with its tropical gardens
 and the tables arranged round a lily pond. Or the Caf6 Berlin next door,
 where the orchestra was directed by Emil Schugalt6, who, before the
 revolution had been one of the most brilliant violin students of the
 conservatoire in Saint Petersburg.
  But tonight the Volkmanns were entertaining at home, in their apartment,
  where Isaac's superb collection of prints and paintings were on every wall.
  Feininger, Nolde, Grosz, and all sorts of bizarre examples of Dadaism. That
  magnificent collection was, it was whispered, the reason so many of
  Berlin's artists had notably fine teeth.
  But Isaac Volkmann hadn't invited his guests to see his art collection. He
  was engaging in a tricky exercise in social engineering: trying to
  re-establish ihe former close relationship between the Winter brothers. The
  men had not taken a meal together since Peter's visit to the Obersalzberg
  at Christmas 1930. If it didn't workt if his two friends resented this
  contrived meeting - he'd not warned either of them - and there was some
  awful row, better then, that it should take place at his home than in a
  restaurant for all the world to see.
  This explanation did nothing to allay the fears of his wife, Lily. Since
  she was already worried about the cooking, the table arrangement and the
  fact that by six o'clock that evening the fish for the second course had
  still not arrived, the last thing she wanted to contemplate was the chance
  of her guests quarrelling.
  'Oh, Lily. I forgot to mention that I invited that young English patient,
  too.'
 'Oh, Izzy. How could you!' She stamped her foot angrily.
  'He's a nice young man. I thought Lottie might enjoy speaking her own
  language for a change.'
 'The table has been arranged for hours.'
 'Just one more dinner, Lily, my sweetheart.'
  'An extra man. It's worse than asking two people. I can't possibly fit him
  in, Izzy.'
 'Nonsense, darling. Just move the flowers.'
 'Izzy, I spent all the morning doing those flowers.'
 'They'll look just as good on the side table there.'
 'I haven't got enough food.'
  'You have far too much. You always order far too much food: enough for
  double the numbers we invite. Sometimes I think it must be that you had an
  impoverished childhood.'

                272
        'Was that more shouting in the street?'

 'Izzy. How could you do this to me? Do you hate me so much?' 'My darling,
 how could you say such a thing?'
  'You'd better tell me about him, so that I don't say the wrong thiri
  'He came to the surgery a week ago. In pain. A hairline crack in an upper
  front tooth. I saw immediately that it was a root canal.'
  'Izzy, I haven't got time for one of your lectures on modern dentistry.'
  'An Englishman. Twenty-three years old. Born to poor parents . . .'
 'Did you ask him?'
  'His teeth are in terrible condition. Poor parents, there is no doubt. He
  works for Dornier. A clever young man, very quick and amusing. He came
  today for a final checkup. I had a cancellation, so I was able to chat with
  him. On an impulse I invited him. Be nice to him, Lily.'
  'Am I ever anything but nice? I am too nice, that's my trouble. And what
  happens? I end up married to an inconsiderate brute who wants to make my
  hair turn grey. Why didn't you phone and tell me there was an extra man? I
  could have invited List Hermig. Her husband is giving a recital in Breslau
  and won't be back until the weekend.'
 'Ah, the door. Someone must be very early.'
  'Izzy, it's not funny to try to make me more nervous than I already am.
  It's the fish.'
 'I know,' said Isaac. 'You have hours yet.'
 'I haven't even chosen what to wear.'
  'You look lovely just as you are, my darling.' He put his arms round heir.
 'Izzy. Stop it. One of the servants might come iri
  Dr Isaac Volkmann's 'experiment' seemed to work well. Volkmann was not a
  man who attempted such things without being confident of the outcome. He
  was abotit the same age as Pauli and had been with him in the Storm
  Battalion during the closing weeks of the war. He'd met him again after the
  war, and Pauli had been one of his very first patients; Peter Winter came
  to him soon after. Peter's contacts with the theatre world had brought
  Isaac some of his first celebrated patients. Isaac Volkmann felt obliged to
  both men, and the trouble he'd taken for tonight's reconciliation was a
  measure of his feeling about them both.
 The brothers, and their respective wives, Lottie and Inge, talked

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 and laughed together as if there had never been a difference of opinion
 about the visit to Adolf Hitler's private residence. Peter's wife, Lottie,
 just over the hurdle of her thirtieth birthday, had dispensed with the
 fringe she'd had for so long and let her lustrous black, wavy hair grow
 long enough to cover her ears. She wore a mustard-yellow silk-georgette
 dress with. metallic-gold embroidery, a daring sort of colour that only
 the exuberant Lottie could carry off with such style. And, never outdone,
 Inge, who had kept her hair short and boyish ever since bobbed hair had
 become fashionable, wore a conservative sleeveless black dress and a
 double rope of real pearls. Peter was slimmei, and his gaunt appearance
 suited him. His features had become more pointed with age - a hatchet face
 -unmistakably German. lie looked, Inge noticed, more handsome than ever.
 The two brothers were in dinner jackets, like their host, but the
 Englishman, full of apologies, had arrived in a lounge suit, the most
 formal clothes lie possessed.
  Over the fresh asparagus the conversation was mostly about the new film
  about Frederick the Great. Otto Gebuhr, who'd played Frederick the Great
  in the UFA comedy film Das F16tenkonzert von Sanssouci, was to repeat
  this role in the more serious film Der Choral von Leuthen. As Peter
  Winter said, the actor might not have been an exact likeness of that
  cighteenth-century monarch, but he was exactly what every German wanted
  to believe Frederick was like. Pauli, typically provocative, said that
  Richard Tauber, the singer from the Metropole Theatre, would be much
  better in the role of Frederick the Great. It was Lottie, of course, who
  said sarcastically that she could think of someone who could play the
  role of Frederick the Great better than either. The laughter was
  restrained. There was no need for her to say whom she had in mind. This
  was election day, and even when Hitler's name was kept out of the
  conversation, he was not far from everyone's thoughts.
  'He won't win,' said Pauli. 'That's obvious even to the Fiffirer himself.
  But he'll show the world that a great many Germans want him as their
  leader.' He passed the melted butter to Lottie without taking any. He was
  getting fat, and tonight he'd had trouble getting into his evening-dress
  trousers.
  'What are you betting?' said Peter. 'A third of the votes?' Peter could
  take melted butter, and all the other good things of life, and still
  remain slim. Why do some people get fat so easily? Peter looked lanky,
  long-haired, and 'artistic': floppy bow tie and saffroncoloured silk
  handkerchief in his top pocket. The handkerchief

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        'Was that m(we shouting in the street?'

 exactly matched his wife's dress. It really was too much. Peter tried to
 look like the theatrical crowd with which he spent so much time. His
 American grandfather was just the same: he loved to be mistaken for a
 painter.
  'Yes, and anything up to fifty per cent for Hindenburg. The rest for the
  communist,' said Pauli in a voice that he kept flat and unemotional.
  'It makes me shudder,' said Volkmann. 'The thought of your Nazis getting
  into power . . ~'
 'You've nothing to fear, Isaac,' said Pauli.
  'Are you crazy, Pauli?' said Isaac Volkmann. 'Outside the department
  stores I see your brownshirts carrying signs saying, "Don't buy from
  Jews". How long before I have a brownshirt on my doorstep saying, "Don't
  have your teeth fixed by a Jew"?'
 'They're just signs,' said Pauli. He was embarrassed.
  'They're not just signs, Pauli. While I was passing Wertheims last week,
  I saw a couple of customers getting punched by brownshirt bully-boys just
  because they insisted on going in.' Volkmann's face had gone red: it
  always did when he became excited.
  'Then they should have gone to the police,' said Pauli. 'We don't claim
  to be above the law.'
  'When will you open your eyes, Pauli?' said Isaac. He had stopped, knife
  and fork in mid-air, eves wide open and fixed on Pauli, his old army
  comrade. He wanted to make him understand the validity of his fears. 'Two
  policemen stood there and watched it happen. They did nothing. Germans
  can't rely on their police any more. It's tragic.'
  No one said anything. Volkmann became calmer and ate some asparagus.
  'What do you think of all this, Mr Samson?' Volkmann asked his English
  guest. Brian Samson was a handsome young man with light-brown wavy hair
  and the sort of straggling, lopsided moustache that young men are
  sometimes tempted to grow. He would have been very handsome except for
  the ruddy complexion that so often afflicts the British. He wore a grey
  worsted suit of English styling. The suit was of good enough quality,
  thought Volkmann, but how he would have liked to tell the young man that
  a celluloid collar -- even a brand-new white one - spoiled everything.
  However, Volkmarm knew enough about the world to know that Samson's plain
  blue silk tie explained a great deal about this young man. He'd met
  enough Englishmen who mattered to know that the men who made the
  decisions in England wore ties with stripes or patterns: 'old school
  ties', the English called them. And Samson's

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 hands were a worker's hands: scarred and calloused, with oil and dirt that
 seemed to be under the skin, so that no amount of scrubbing would make them
 like the hands of a gentleman.
 'I don't know what to think, Herr Doktor.
 'Isaac. Call me Isaac, as my friends do.'
  'I'm an engineer. Designing, costing and testing prototypes is about as
  much as my brain can deal with. I like things I can measure on a micrometer
  and calculate on a slide rule. I just haven't got the time, let alone the
  inclination, for politics.'
  There was confusion as three or four of the guests started to reply
  together and then stopped; everyone laughed.
  'We all have a solution, you see,' said Isaac, speaking to Samson, 'but we
  all have a different one. That's what's troubling us in Germany.'
  'I've never been very religious,' said Samson. 'My mother was a Roman
  Catholic and my father a Church of England Protestant, so they compromised
  by bringing me up as an agnostic. . . .' He laughed briefly, as if perhaps
  he resented what his parents had done. 'So I can't follow Hitler's
  religious persecution of the Jews. I don't see what the Nazis can hope to
  gain from it.'
 'It's not religious perwcution,' said Lottie, 'it's racial.'
 'You'll have to explain the difference,' said Samson.
  'We've had persecution of the Jews in Europe for centuries,' said Lottie.
  'But in the old days, if a Jew converted to the Christian faith the
  persecution ended. Hitler offers no such respite. Hitler hates the Jews
  because they are of Jewish race, not because of some subtle distinctions in
  their beliefs about God.'
  She stopped, but it was obvious that Lottie had more to say. Lottie glanced
  at Peter. She was always worried about embarrassing him. It was difficult
  to know when he was upset, and she still felt guilty about getting him to
  leave the house on the Obersalzberg so precipitately that Christmas. Peter
  smiled at her. He knew she was using the presence of the English guest as
  an excuse to air her fear and' anger, but it was better that she did so.
  'You can't leave it like that,' said Samson. 'Explain, please.' Samson was
  an experienced and trained observer, so he noticed the way Lottie kept her
  husband always in view. There was nothing obvious about it, but Samson
  decided he'd never seen a woman so desperately in love, and he felt an
  irrational pang of jealousy for Peter Winter. He wondered if Winter
  realized how lucky he was.
 Lottie said,'Hitler's Nazism, like Mussolini's Fascism, is a society

                276
        'Was that more shouting in the street?'

 at war. Its members are asked to make sacrifices and obey orders and put
 up with all kinds of indignities and deprivations because the society is
 at war'. She looked quickly round the table to see how the others were.
 taking it. Everyone except Inge was looking at her: Inge was concentrating
 on her plate. 'Nietzsche worshipped the warrior. He said that the only
 role for man was fighting, and the only role for women giving birth to
 warriors. In order to swallow that sort of garbage, you have to persuade
 yourself that you are at war, threatened by a cunning and merciless enemy.
 Hitler has provided that enemy. Hitler's Germany, if it ever came, would
 be permanently at war with the Jew.'
 'I hope you're wrong, Mrs Winter,' said Samson.
  Pauli laughed. He could not take that sort of intellectualization
  seriously. He said, 'I wish you wouldn't all read between the lines. You
  don't pick your way through every line of the Communist Party manifesto.
  You don't take seriously every promise and threat in the speeches of the
  Social Democrats. It's only Hitler that you treat like a bogeyman. But
  Hitler is jusi as cunning a politician as the others. He knows how to
  handle a crowd and tell them the things they want to hear. Once in power
  he'll do what all politicians do once they've achieved their ambition:
  he'll drop all these nonsensical points. He'd make a good chancellor, the
  only man strong enough to stand up for Germany against the rest of the
  world.'
  Lottie said, 'I don't know why you need someone to stand up for Germany.
  The world's treating Germany generously, if you ask me.'
  'Come down from the mountain, Lottie,' said Isaac Volkmann good -humoured
  ly. 'Look at the Versailles Treaty and you'll see how 11 generously" the
  world is treating us.' He glanced at the others for support. Even Samson
  nodded.
  Lottie said, 'Have you forgotten the terms Germany inflicted on France
  after winning the Franco-Prussian War?'
  'Even worse, yes, but that was a long time ago,' said Lily Volkmann,
  whose schooldays were nearer than those of most of the others present.
  Lottie smiled. It was just what she expected them to say. 'Then look at
  the terms Germany forced on the Russians when they stopped fighting in
  19 1 -- Look at i he enormous areas of Russia the army occupied. Compared
  with that treaty, the terms the Allies drew up were lenient.'
  'That's all history now,' said Dr Volkmann dismissively. 'It's not
  relevant.'

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  'Yes, it is,' said Lottie emphatically. 'German schools are the root of
  all the problems. German schoolteachers have always taught that Germans
  are racially superior and destined to rule Europe. No sooner was the war
  over than the Weimar government encouraged schools to say that Britain,
  France and Russia had forced Germany to go to war. Kaiser Wilhelm 11
  appears in classrooms as an apostle of world peace. From that kind of
  baloney it's a short step to antiSemitism.'
 'You exaggerate, Loi tie,' said Inge gently.
 Lottie smiled bitterly at her. 'You know I don't,' she said.
  Frau Volkmann pressed a hidden buzzer to signal that the servants should
  come in and clear the dishes and serve the next course.
  As a relief from the emotive political arguments, Isaac Volkmann asked
  leading questions of his English guest. Brian Samson told them of his
  childhood, which he'd spent as the only child of two domestic servants
  in a baronial estate in England's Midlands. When his father's employer
  bought a Rolls-Royce motorcar, Samsom's father had been sent to the
  factory in Derby for a course in driving and maintenance. At that time
  such an instructional course for the customer's servant was included in
  the purchase price of the car. The young boy was thrilled at his father's
  good fortune and took a passionate interest in the wonderful car, so that
  by the time he left school, at fourteen, he was skilled enough to get a
  job in the local garage. Since then he'd studied at night school and got
  an intermediate engineering exam. But the chance of a job in the design
  department of the Dornier diesel-engine factory on the Bodensee persuaded
  him to defer taking his final exams for a year or two. Now he spoke
  excellent German (and had picked up adequate French on side trips to
  France) and was wondering whether to go back to England at all.
  'If you get tired of your present job, Samson, come and see me,' said
  Peter Winter. 'We need skilled men in the factory my father's company is
  building in Bremen. You'd have good prospects.'
 'What sort of work would that be, Herr Winter?'
  Winter continued removing the bone from his grilled sole. Then,
  encouraged by Samson's earlier remark that he was not interested in
  politics: 'Aircraft engines. Very high-power, water-cooled, in-line
  designs ... fuel injection, but petrol, not diesel.'
  Samson was immediately interested. 'For fighter planes for the air
  force?'
 Without looking up from his fish, Peter said,'There is no air force

                278
        'Was that more shouting in the street?'

 the Versailles Treaty forbids it. Our engines go for export to Sweden and
 other countries.'
  'I have no objection to helping Germany build aircraft engines for export
  or for any other purpose, Herr Winter. The engines you describe are
  exactly what I have been working on. I'd be grateful for any introduction
  you can arrange.'
  Peter Winter passed a business card to Samson. 'Come and see me. Phone
  me next week, and my secretary will make an appointment for us. Lunch,
  if you're free.'
  'That would be very convenient,'said Samson. He had no illusions about
  the lunch, or the job he was being offered. The Winter companies had only
  recently gone into aircraft-engine design. An ex-employee of Dornier
  could provide them with all sorts of information, including what their
  rival was up to. Peter Winter would sound him out over lunch. That was
  how these things worked: it was like espionage.
 'Good,' said Peter.
  Until now there had been nothing to indicate it was election day. But now
  from the street out side came the sounds of marching men, and then some
  shouting. Bayerischer Platz, around the corner, was a favourite assembly
  place for the Nazi parades and rallies.
  'Can the results be known already?' said Lily Volkmann. She asked her
  husband: he always seemed to know everything.
 'Far too early,' said Dr Volkmann.
  There were more shouts. No one got up from the table. Peter Winter said,
  'Tomorrow I will join the Social Democrats.'
  Pauli said, 'We've had the Social Democrats since the war ended, and what
  has that got us bui millions of unemployed, and streets not safe to walk
  down?'
  'Was that more shouting in the street?' said Lily Volkmann nervously.
 'It was more like screaming,' said Brian Samson.
  Dr Volkmann poured more wine. No one spoke, and no one got up to look out
  the window.

         'Would I know his na"te?'

For Pauli the dinner party with his brother was nothing short of
rejuvenating. And the next day Peter phoned him and invited him to
lunch at the luxurious wine restaurant that Lutter and Wegener

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         Nineteen hundred and thirt~-two

 (whose restaurant in the Gendarmerunarkt had been famous since the
 eighteenth century) had now opened in the West End of the city.
  Their lunch was modest enough, and they drank no more than a bottle of
  Rhine wine and some French brandy, but Pauli was grateful for a chance to
  talk at length with his brother. He told him about his troubles at work.
  He'd been moved away from Party Headquarters to a dark little office near
  the Tempelhof S-Bahn station. It was a long way from his home in Pankow,
  and now that he no longer had a car and driver, he spent hours every day on
  the train. He had no secretary, either. These things were all said to be
  part of an attempt to cut back the expenses, but Pauli had seen the order
  that specifically named Paul Winter as one of the staff who didn't need
  either a secretary or an assistant. There had been many complaints. Most of
  Pauli's co-workers said the economies were Dr Josef Goebbels's idea but
  Pauli didn't believe it. It was Brand, of course, trying to force him out,
  or perhaps hoping that Pauli would complain or do something silly to get
  even with him.
  'Then, for God's sake, leave them, Pauli,' his brother urged. 'We can
  always find a job for you somewhere in the firm.'
  'Another lawyer! You've got them coming out of your ears already. I've
  heard you say so.'
  'We'll get rid of someone.' Peter had always been ruthless about such
  things. He didn't see it as a moral question-, it was just a matter of
  administration.
 'I wouldn't feel right about that, Peter. Thanks all the same.'
 'Then what will you do?'
  Pauli toyed with his wine glass before answering. 'I've been thinking about
  all the people I've got to know at the top of the tree.'
 'Yes, go and see the Fiffirer.'
 'No I couldn't. . . .'
 'It was a joke, Pauli
 'Yes, of course.'
  'But how long will it all last, Pauli? These scandals will bring Hitler
  down. You mu,~t have seen those letters from R6hm that the Miinchner Post
  published in March. Are you going to tell me that they were forgeries?'
  'No, R6hm is an unrepentant homosexual. He makes no great secret of it '
  'And now Vorwdrts lkas a story about a murder plot against R6hm. It sounds
  like a madhouse. It sounds as if the SA is run by murderers, lunatics and
  homosexuals. You don't belong among such people.'

                28o
          'Would I know his name?'

 :You mustn't believe everything you read in the papers, Peter.'
 What are you going to do?'
  'Well, I know one old soldier in Munich who is said to wield influence with
  R61im and some other top SA people. I know him well. I'm taking the train
  tornorrow.'
 'Would I know his narne?'
  'No,' said Pauli and felt guilty, for Peter would have known his name only
  too well.

        'Him and many more like him'

 Pauli Winter had regained contact with Captain Graf when a letter arrived at
 Berlin Party HQ enclosing a list of books and asking to have them sent to
 his address in Munich. The clerk who authorized payment for such things
 queried the order, because the books were so different from the usual
 official demands by party and SA units. Captain Graf wanted old textbooks
 issued by the Kaiser's army. His list included such manuals as Forage and
 Shelter for Cavalry Horses and Transport Animals Under Active Service
 Conditions, The Construction andMaintenance ofField Latrines, Parade
 OrdersforInfantyy Officers, and Divisional Operations: Test Papers for Staff
 Officers Under Training.
  News about the curious Captain Graf - his old army comrade and Freikorps
  commander - was always of interest to Pauli Winter. And he couldn't help
  noticing that the clerk's query was answered by an official letter from the
  SA chief of staffs office. It said that Captain Graf was engaged on work of
  great importance and was to be provided with any books and any other
  materiais that he wanted. Even more remarkably, the letter was signed not
  only by R61im's secretary; the chief of staff had scrawled his own
  signature on it, too.
  Pauli had noted the address and, telling Inge only that he had to go to
  Munich 'on business' lie caught the sleeper which arrived in Munich's
  1-fauptbahnhof at eight in the morning.
  Pauli was not usually a worrier, but the pressure that he'd been under for
  the last few months had caused him to add about six kilos to his weight.
  Pauli was one of those people who nibbled between meals, and ate more and
  more when under stress. It was this extra weight that. made Pauli wear his
  Tracht: his green loden breeches and decorated jacket had always been too
  large for him.
 Tracht was exactly right for his visit to Bavaria. A man dressed in

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 such local costume was sure of a welcome anywhere in the South. It was the
 right dress for any activity, for work to wedding. And Pauli -born in Vienna
 - had an incontestable right to wear it.
  When he came out of the Munich railway station, it was a bright, clear
  morning, with the chilly wind from the Alps that made the Bavarian
  capital's weather so unpredictable. Pauli would normally have reported to
  the Brown House - the former Barlow Palace now used as Party HQ - bui news
  of that would have got back to Brand. Pauli didn't want that; this was to
  be a purely private visit; not even Inge knew where he was going. He took
  a taxicab to Captain Graf's address. It was in the district of Giesing, one
  of the former villages that make up the town. At the end of the street were
  a small bridge and a stream and a couple of old farmhouses, enshadowed now
  by the big blocks of nineteenth-century apartment buildings. Pauli opened
  the street door of one such grimy tenement and entered a dark lobby, its
  walls covered with scratched green tiles. He squeezed past a dozen or more
  bicycles, which seemed inextricably locked together, and opened doors that
  gave onto a dimly lit staircase.
  He found Graf's name on one of the two dozen postboxes and then climbed the
  stairs. He was out of breath when he got to the top -badly out of
  condition, not as in his army days, when he could run five kilometres
  before breakfast and enjoy every minute of it. He rang the doorbell and
  waited. On the other side of the door were voices. There was a long delay.
  Pauli looked out of the dirty window. From here he could see down into the
  yard: a row of overfilled rubbish bins and a restless dog.
  'Yes?' A beautiful young blond man had opened the door in response to the
  bell. 'Your name?' The boy was wearing lederhosen and a Bavarian-style
  shirt. The SA uniform was now banned.
  'Winter. Oberleutnant Winter. I phoned.' Too late, he realized that it
  might have been more appropriate to use his honorarv SA rank, but he was
  still enough of a snob to prefer his army title. And so, judging by the
  label on the bell, was Hauptmann Graf.
 'The captain is expecting you. Third door on the right. Go in.'
  Pauli had always remembered Captain Graf as a man of action, a man he'd
  marched with and fought alongside, a tough, ruthless and cruel commander
  who ruled by fear and fought mercilessly. Pauli didn't expect to see hint
  in this setting.
  The large room was lined with books: hundreds, perhaps thousands of them,
  filling crudely made shelves and piled high on the floor, Graf himself
  was,,itting at an old-fashioned carved desk, with

                282
          'Him and many more like him'

 more volumes spread round him. Some of the books were open for reference,
 and others had pages marked with slips of paper. Before him there was an
 open loose-leaf book in which he was writing in longhand. From the next
 room came the sound of a typewriter.
  Graf looked at Winter sternly before greeting him. The Tracht that Pauli
  had chosen to wear was significant. Tracht was worn these days by men and
  %Nomen who believed that South Germany had its own destiny. The costume
  had become a symbol of patriotism and of traditional country life anti
  of the Nazis who stressed these values so diligently.
  'Winter! Sit down. Move those books from the chair! It's good to see you
  again. Coffee or schnapps? Or both?' Graf was the same ferret-faced
  little fellow, hut his weathered face was wrinkled now and his body was
  bent. He took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and put them on the desk.
  He was wearing shiny brown leather high boots and a tight-fitting tunic.
  After a lifetime of uniforms he felt uncomfortable in anything else.
 'Both,' said Pauli.
  'Hans!' Graf yelled. '( offee and my bottle.' He watched Pauli moving the
  heavy books in order to sit down. 'You're as fat as a pig, Winter.
  Exercise. You need exercise. Too soft. Everyone's too damned soft these
  days.'
 'You're right, Herr Hauptmann.'
  'Thirty minutes every morning. See that muscle?' He slapped his own arm
  and then looked at Pauli again. 'My God, man, you are flabby. It's a
  disgrace.'
  'Yes, Herr Hauptmann. I want your advice. I know you're a busy man.'
 'Do you? "Busy man". What else do you know?'
  'The C~hief of Staff has given instructions that you are to be sent
  anything you ask for.'
  'Yes, I know. I got him on the phone. I won't have some little shit of
  a clerk questioning my instructions. Did you kick his ass?'
 'He doesn't work for mc,' said Pauli. 'I'm in the legal department.'
  'Ha!' said Graf. 'Yes, I phoned the boss direct; I've known R6hm since
  he was a child. I could tell you some stories - I won't, but I could. I
  sentenced him to ten days in the cells. He was a cadet in those days.
  This is going back a long time, of course.'
  The coffee and schnapps arrived on a teak tray complete with a linen
  traycloth and polished silver spoons and cream jug. The young ma;i whc,
  brought it looked apprehensive and kept his eyes down.

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 'Sugar, crearn Schnapps cold? Yes,' said Graf as he checked the tray in
 military style. 'Get out.' The boy departed without having spoken.
  Pauli was nervous. It was now or never. 'Do you know an officer named
  Heinrich Brand? An Obersturmbarinfiffirer.'
  'Know him? Of course I know him. Insolent bastard! I know all about him.
  Started off a ranker in a cavalry regiment ... Then some damned fool made
  him an officer. He's an upstart. Blood will out, Winter. I've always said
  that.'
 'I remember.'
 'Brand. An ambitious little peasant. Of course I know him.'
 'He's making life difficult for me, Captain Graf.'
 'A peasant! Who made him an officer? Answer me that.'
 'He's an Obersturnibarinfiffirer now.'
 'Rank counts for nothing. It's a matter of influence.'
 'Brand is close to the chief of staff.'
  Graf became agitated. 'Is he? Who told you that? Do you know what I'm doing
  here, Winter? Let me show you.'Graf went across to a cupboard and took a
  rolled sheet of paper from it. He waved the roll at Pauli. 'As soon as we
  gain power, the SA will be merged into the army. Every one of our men will
  become a soldier. The chief of staff has appointed me to draw up the plans
  for that great day.' He unrolled the large sheet of paper. He spread it on
  the desk and weighted the corners with books so they could see it. It was
  a complicated diagram showing the units of the German army, down to company
  level, and their present regional disposition, Wehrkreis by Wehrkreis,
  Upon the drawing in coloured inks, were the names and numbers of SA units:
  SA Standarten had always been numbered to correspond with the old Imperial
  Army regiments. Now Graf s diagram showed how every army regiment would
  have a large brownshirt component to guarantee its loyalty to the Nazi
  regime.
  Graf snapped his glasses on over his large ears and proudly stabbed a
  finger at his diagram. 'The Reichsheer will be expanded so that each
  regimen t will have one ordinary battalion - allgemeines Bataillon - and
  one brownshirt battalion.' He moved his finger across the paper. 'The staff
  arrangements are somewhat more complex. Eventually brownshirt officers will
  be represented in all arms, but for the time being the technical branches
  - engineers, artillery and panzer -- will have to remain the monopoly of
  the Reichsheer's trained officers.'

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         'Him and many more like him'

  'Has the Fi1hrer agreed to all this? I thought he had promised the
  generals that they would be the "sole bearer of arms".'
  'The FUhrer? Come alive, boy. Wake up! The SA is more than
 four times the size of the Reichswehr, nearly half a million men. We
 don't have to bow and scrape to the soldiers, or to the Fiffirer,
 either.
 We are the new army of National Social lism. When the little Austrian
 gets into power, it will be because we've put him there.'
  Pauli suppressed a shudder. He'd heard such ideas before, and even though
  Ernst R6hrn was a fearless soldier and a capable staff officer, the idea
  of that plump homosexual with his scarred face and coarse manners taking
  over the German army was unthinkable. 'Does Rbhm say this?' Pauli asked.
 'You're noi some damned spy, are you, Winter?'
  'No, of course not, Captain Graf. But this is all a big surprise for me.'
  'And it will be a big surprise for some of those other fellows in Berlin,
  too, eh?'He winked.
 'And Brand?'
  He looked at Pauli for a moment before deciding he could confide in him.
  'Brand will be taken care of. Don't worry about our friend Brand. His
  name is on the list.'
 'The list?'
  'The list of enemies, boy. You don't make an omelette without cracking
  eggs. Ever heard that expression? Yes, Brand is one of them. The chief
  of staff keeps Brand there in order to keep an eye on him. We know Brand
  reports to his damned Fiffirer everything he sees and hears.' Graf was
  still studying his diagram with great pride and interest.
 'Killed? He'll be killed?'
  Graf looked up. 'There's no other way. It's been decided at top level.
  Him and many more like him.'
 'When?'
 'When?'
 'When will this happen?' said Pauli.
  'When we assume power,' said Graf, releasing the diagram from the weights
  and rolling it up again.
 'This year-d'
  Graf shrugged. 'I'm not a politician. You'd better ask your friend Esser.
  He's one of the high-ups nowadays.'
 'Do you see Fritz?' Pauli asked. It was a question that really

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 meant, Does Fritz Esser know about R6hm's plans to take over the army no
 matter what anyone else says or does?
  'Esser? Haven't seen him for years.' Graf scratched his head pensively. 'He
  owes me a favour or two. I hope he'll remember that.'
 'Fritz never forgets a friend.'
  'I'm not a friend,' said Graf with pedantic precision. 'But he owes me
  favours.'
 'Brand is making my life unbearable,' said Pauli.
 'I could talk to R6hm, but he hates complaints of that sort.'
 'No, don't say anything to anyone. I wanted your advice.'
  'Stick it out. That's my advice. Brand and all his cronies will be gone out
  of your life forever within a month of our achieving power. Stick it out,
  boy.'
  'Yes,' said Pauli, and resolved to do so. He respected Grafs advice. Pauli
  needed someone to turn to: at cadet school, when Peter .couldn't help, he'd
  turned to Alex Homer. In party matters he used to go to Fritz Esser. In
  this case, when Esser was in no position to help, he went to Graf. lie
  admired men who were confident and decisive. He wished he were such a
  person, but it was such a strain being decisive, and decisive men made too
  many enemies. Pauli preferred to go along with the tide. Life was too short
  to be taken seriously. What was that joke he'd heard from his soldiers
  during the terrible fighting of 1918? 'If you take life seriously you won't
  get out of it alive.' He knew why tankers refused promotion. It was easier
  to be a private soldier, to take each day as it came, to comply with
  orders, and not to have all the problems that came with decisionmaking.
  Yes, damn it, he'd stick it out.
 'Drink your coffee, Winter.'
 'I can see you're busy, Captain Graf.'
 'Never too busy to chat with an old comrade. Drink your coffee.' 'After that
 I must go and leave you to your work.'
  The two men sat in awkward silence for a few minutes; then Captain Graf
  said, 'That fellow who got hurt that night... ?'
 'Hauser. My father's valet.'
 'Is he well?'
 'Very well. He still works for my father.'
 'I'd had too much to drink, Winter.'
 'It's all forgotten, Captain Graf.'
 'Thanks to you, it all blew over, I think,' said Graf.
 'It's all forgotten,' said Pauli again, embarrassed at the mention of

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 the stabbing at his party so long ago. He finished his coffee, swigged
 back his schnapps, and got up to go.
  When Pauli got to the door Graf said, 'I never forget a favour, Winter.
  You leave Brand to me. I'll speak to the chief of staff.'
 'Thank you Captain Graf,' said Pauli.

 It was still early, and Munich was one of Europe's most beautiful medieval
 towns. Pauli strolled back across the river and into the centre of the
 city. There was a Nazi demonstration assembling behind Marienplatz - big
 banners, slogans, and dozens of swastika flags. On one side of the open
 square the brownshirts, complete with brass band, were getting into their
 formations, and behind them were dozens of men and women in the elaborate
 lacy national costumes of Upper Bavaria. It was usual for the Nazis to
 combine their new authoritarian urban creed with sentimental evidence of
 their love of things natural, traditional, and rural.
  Pauli turned aside lest hc meet someone he knew. He walked down as far
  as the Viktualienmarkt: he liked to smell the fresh fruit and vegetables,
  and there were open-air eating places selling beer and an array of fine
  sausages. It was almost lunchtime, and there was enough sun to warm the
  air. He sat down at an iron table and ordered Maibock -- the dark Munich
  beer that is brewed in May - and Munich-style white sausages with rye
  bread.
  He was eating contentedly, and idly watching the girls strolling in the
  market place, when a voice behind him said,'In Munich you skin the
  weisswurst before you eat them, Winter, old comrade.'
  'Koch!" said Pauli. It was Lothar Koch, his Feldwebel from the storm
  company, now dressed in an expensive black leather overcoat and a
  Tirolean hat, complete with leather band and badger brush. He was no
  longer that pimply youth; he'd become a mournful-looking man in his early
  thirties with a large bulbous nose, bushy black eyebrows,, and dark rings
  under his eyes.
  The two men shook hands, and Koch's face lit up with a smile to reveal
  a gold molar amongst his sound, white, even teeth. 'What are you doing
  in Munich? I thought you lived in Berlin.'
 'A business trip. I'm catching the afternoon train back. And you?'
  'I've lived here for over five years now. I work for the party,' he said,
  avoiding the word Nazi, as so many did at that time. He sat down
  uninvited. Koch was not a stickler for etiquette.
  'So do I,' said Pauli, relieved at not having to surmount a hurdle that
  sometimes made social difficulties.

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  'I know. I've heard about you. I am with the "Sicherheitsdienst
  Reichsf(Jihrer-SS ".'He smiled as if this was an inappropriate job for
  him. The SD was the official name for the Nazi party's private security
  service.
  'What do you do, Lothar?' The waitress came and Pauli ordered beer and
  weisswurst for his friend.
  'I work for a young fencing champion named Reinhard Heydrich. Know him?
  Too young for the war ... One of these young lunatics who thinks they
  missed something good. You must know the type -Germany's full of them.'
  'And now?' Pauli asked. The white sausages arrived, complete with beer,
  bread and the special sweet, dark mustard that goes with them.
  'My boss is on the staff of Reichsfiihrer Himmler. We have a little
  office at Tiirkenstrasse 23, here in Munich. Officially, since the
  government banned Nazi organizations, we are called the Presse und
  Informationsdienst.'
 'And unofficially? I mean, what do you do, Lothar?'
  'My remarkable "Reini" persuaded the Reichsfiihrer that the whole damned
  organization is riddled with police and communist spies. We track down
  ant iparty elements within the party. We report on the communists and we
  keep a file index on everyone we can think of.' Helaughed and stabbed a
  sausage to lift it from its dish of hot water. Once it was on his plate,
  he skinned it expertly and started to eat. Lothar had always been a
  hearty trencherman: it was strange that he, didn't get fat. Maybe he
  worried a lot, thought Pauli, but he didn't look like a worrier. A sad
  fellow, perhaps, but not a worrier.
 'Are there so many spies within the party?' asked Pauli.
 'If Reini Heydrich wants them, I will provide them,' said Koch.
 'Be serious, Lothar.'
  'I am serious. My God, Pauli. This fellow Heydrich has only just joined
  the party - in no iime at all he's on the Reichsfiffirer's staff. From
  then on I can hardly keep up with his promotions. Last night there was
  a teleprinter message to say that as of July ig he'll be formally
  appointed head of the SD, with the rank of Standartenfdhrer to take
  effect ten days later. Can you imagine what he's earning? And now, to cap
  it all, he's on a trip round all the SD offices in Germany.'
 'How many offices do vou have in Germany?'
  'Onlya handful of informers here and there.' He stuffed a piece of bread
  into his mouth and carried on talking. 'That's just Reini's

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 excuse for a jaunt: having his women, his luxury hotels and his fancy
 restaurant bills paid for by the party.' He ate sausage.
 'Can he get away with that?'
  Lothar had a mouthful of sausage but still he smiled. 'Who's going to
  stop him. Are you? Is some little party official in the cashier's office
  going to object? No. We know how things are done in the party, don't we,
  Pauli? Anyone who gets in the way of this cunning steamroller will find
  himself on a card index file and then in hot - very hot - water.'
 "What sort of hot water?'
  'I don't mean a scented bath. Reini knows how to deal with opposition,
  whatever else he doesn't know.' There were no table napkins. Koch reached
  into his pocket and wiped the mustard from his lips with his
  handkerchief.
 'Sounds awful,' said Pauli.
  'It's all a big joke,' said Lothar. 'The biggest bloody joke I know since
  that bastard Woermann got his ass shot off in no-man's-land, remember?'
  'Yes.' Pauli remembered. He'd remembered that along with a thousand other
  nightmares, but had never been able to find amusement in the memory.
  From Marienplatz came the sound of the brownshirt brass band. It started
  with a rousing old Bavarian march from the days of the monarchy. That
  would bring the crowds: young and old. Only later would they play the
  solemn Nazi songs, and finally the sentimental ones, to create a serious
  mood for the speeches. Then, at the very end, would come the merry,
  catchy tunes for the collection boxes. It was all worked out in great
  detail.
  'Damnit, Pauli, loosen up, man. If the law of averages was straight, we
  wouldn't even be here. We'd be manure under a piece of French farmland.
  If these stupid bastards want to spy on each other, that's all right by
  me. And the pay is good.'
 'Is it?' said Pauli.
  'Ah!'He laughed again and waved a finger under Pauli's nose. 'It's well
  over twice what I'd be getting if I'd stayed in Munich Police
  Headquarters, and I was a senior inspector.' So he was a policeman. That
  explained the way he bolted his food: cops took their refreshment on the
  move, that went with the job. 'You're a lawyer, aren't you?'
 'Yes,' said Pauli.
 'My Reini is looking for a lawyer. He said so only last week. And

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 eventually we'll have a proper Berlin office. If you played your cards
 right, you'd have a senior position there.'
 'I'm not sure I'd fit in.'
  'Don't be a damned fool. No one would fit in better. You've had police
  court experience, you're not one of these desk lawyers, you're wise to
  the ways of the real world.'
  Pauli nodded and wondered how Lothar Koch knew so much about him.
  And if sensing this, Koch said, 'I've seen you in court more than once
  when I've been sent to Berlin on prosecutions. You're sharp, Pauli. I've
  seen you in action, and you're damned quick.'
 'What would I be doing?'
  'I tell you what you'd be doing: almost nothing. My Reini is nervous
  about falling foul of one of these liberal lawyers who enjoy making
  trouble for eveiyone these days. He likes everything legal, my Reini
  does. At present we take our proposals round to the lawyers at the Brown
  House. Well, that's bad security, isn't it? We need our own lawyer to run
  through our plans and okay them. You'd be our tame lawyer.'
 'It sounds good.'
  'It's as easy as skinning weisswurst, old comrade. Can I put your name
  up to my Reini when he gets back, exhausted, from his womanizing
  Olympics?'
 'Yes, thanks, Lothar.'
  'You'll feel more at home with us, Pauli. More laughs and more freedom.
  You were never meant to be working with all those brownshirted riffraff
  or those stiff-necked freaks from the party.'
  They sat and drank another beer and talked of old times. They talked of
  the trenches in 1918 and the friends they had lost there.
  'I'll have to go now or I'll miss my train back,' said Pauli, looking at
  his pocket watch.
 'I'll walk over to the cab rank with you,' said Lothar Koch.
  They walked across the market place. When they said goodbye, Lothar Koch
  said, 'You'll not regret joining us, my old friend. You're our sort.'The
  band music from Marienplatz ended suddenly. There was only a brief pause
  before the first speech began. They were using amplifiers and
  loudspeakers, so that from this distance the voice was distorted into an
  incomprehensible shudder of sound from which only the odd word could be
  recognized.
  'Lothar,' said Pauli, on nothing more than an inspired guess, 'did you
  know I was coming to Munich? Did you follow me today? Did

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 you follow me from the railway station to see where I went, and then
 follow me all the way to the I riktualienmarkt before talking with me?'
 Lothar laughed, and this time Pauli could see two gold teeth. 'There you
 are, Pauli, my old comrade - I said you would be at home with us!'

 291
       W JL933 %I
  'We think sonu-thing is definitely brewing over there'

 'Sometimes I think I've wasted my life,' said Alan Piper. Though he was
 sixty years old, he had the same pink baby face and innocent eyes that at
 Oxford had earned him the nickname Boy. He was dressed in a suit of green
 Harris tweed, the shapeless sort of outfit such Englishmen wore on their
 country estates rather than here in government offices in London S.W. 1.
 Piper offered his young visitor a cigar. He said it again -'wasted my
 life.'There was a slight drawl in his voice, the warning that Englishmen
 like Piper used when they didn't want to be taken too literally.
  Brian Samson took the cigar gratefully. He knew that few field agents ever
  met the European Controller, let alone got invited up to his top-floor
  office to enjoy a chat and a cigar. It was a pleasant room, but dark and
  shadowv, and furnished in a style that suggested the consulting room of an
  Edwardian physician. 'Wasted, sir?' Piper tossed the matches and cutter to
  him. He cut the end from the cigar and put it in his mouth.
  'Because the politicians take no notice of what we tell them, Samson. They
  think I sit up here inventing it all.'
  Samson laughed nervously. My God, this was as near as the senior staff of
  M.1.6could get to mutiny. 'I'm sure they don't,'said Samson awkwardly.
  'No, they believe it all right, Samson.' It was a firmer sort of voice now.
  'That's why they ignore it. Right, Glenn?' He looked at a man seated in the
  corner smoking a curly pipe.
  'Sure thing,' said the man. He smiled. So 'Mr Rensselaer' was an American,
  thought Samson; he'd not noticed the accent when they were so briefly
  introduced. He could see it now: a middle-aged cowhand with weathered face
  and slow smile. He was younger than Piper: wide face, big-boned, with a lot
  of black hair which was beginning to grey at the temples.

                292
    'We think something is definitely bretving over there'

  'And now Hitler's made it: Chancellor Hitler,' said Piper. 'It was
  inevitable, I suppose.'
  Samson got the cigar lighted. 'Yes. He'll rule Germany forever. They'll
  never get rid of him. But it was inevitable,' said Samson. 'He knows how to
  appeal to middle-class Germans: the farmers, the schoolteachers, the
  doctors and so on. The communists couldn't reach such voters as those.'
  'Then maybe you'll explain it,' said Glenn Rensselaer gloomily. 'Because it
  sure beats me.'
  Samson turned to see the American better and said, 'The violence in the
  streets. Mobs - communists, Nazis and troublemakers -roamed through the
  cities looking for a fight. No one was safe. For the m'Iddle-classes - and
  lots of other people, too'- nothing mattered except feeling it was safe to
  walk along the streets, and it seemed like only a Nazi government could
  bring back law and order.'
 'And has he brought back law and order?' Piper asked.
  'Yes and no. In Berlin thousands of party members were appointed police
  auxiliaries. Certainly the communists have been suppressed. But most of the
  current lawlessness is due to his millions of brownshirts. They've set up
  improvised prisons in empty factories, warehouses and cellars. They've
  locked up anyone they don't like. Many have been tortured to death. They
  are a law unto themselves, and they listen only to their Chief of Staff,
  Rbhm.'
 'So how will Hitler deal with that?'
 'You want my opinion or the facts?' said Samson.
  'I have the facts in your report,' said Piper. 'I sent for you to get your
  more personal impressions.'
  Samson puffed at his cigar. 'Since getting into power he's been as active
  as a wagonload of monkeys. The emergency decrees enabled Hitler to ban
  public meetingi and newspapers, tap phones, intercept mail, search homes
  and so ort. But a reliable source told me that he is slowly taking control
  of the political police in every state in Germany and putting them under
  one man. This would be a big step towards total control. I mean total
  control!'
  'My knowledge of the German constitution is rusty,' said Piper, 'but I
  would have thought that was illegal.'
  'It is illegal,'said Samson. 'That's why it's all being done in secret,
  Even Interior Minister Frick seems not to be aware of what's happening.'
 'Who is aware?'
  'Himmler. He'Ll end up as chief of the Political Police for the whole of
  Germany.'

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  Samson glanced out of the window. Across the road was a beautiful Georgian
  house, and behind it the tops of the trees of Green Park. It was winter now
  - almost Christmas - and the trees were bare. There would be parties, paper
  hats, Christmas crackers, turkey and pudding flared with rum. A sudden
  homesickness hit him. He'd love to live in England again. He'd had enough
  of boardinghouses and cheap hotels and interminable foreign voices.
  Glenn Rensselaer said, 'Perhaps Himmler is doing it in his own behalf.'
  'I don't think so, Mr Rensselaer,' said the young man. 'In each state the
  Gauleiter will have to approve such a change to the state's police force.
  The Gauleiters are old Nazis, very touchy, very jealous of their powers.
  Only I litler could persuade the Gauleiters to agree to such a change.'
  'Yes, and eventually Gbring will also have to approve, if Himmler is to
  take over the Prussian Political Police,' said Rensselaer reflectively.
  'Yes, Hitler would have to be a party to it.'
  'Make no mistake, sir, R6hm could win. The next heads to roll could be
  Hitler's, Goebbels's, G6ring's and Hinunler's. Rbhm is energetic and he has
  millions of men who'd back him against Hitler.'
  'Tell us about getting the job with Winter's organization,' Piper asked the
  young mart. He'd heard all he wanted to hear about R6hm's ambitions.
  'It was luck, really. A dentist, a decent old cove, invited me to dinner,
  and Peter Winter was one of the guests. His brother, a Nazi Party lawyer,
  was there, too. Pauh, they call him. He let slip a couple of remarks that
  confirmed my other source. Peter Winter asked about my work. I just floated
  my job at Dornier past him, and he jumped at it. It was easy.'
 'What do you think of Peter Winter?' said Glenn Rensselaer.
  Samson thought for a moment before replying. 'Very German. He even looks
  German. Authoritarian, very proper ... and fair, I suppose. Not the sort
  who'd cheat anyone . . .'
  Boy Piper nodded. Samson's description of Peter could pass as a description
  of Samson himself. It was always like that: men had a sharp eye for their
  own attributes when looking at others. But Glenn wanted to hear more. 'Go
  on,' said Rensselaer.
  Samson said, 'Sophisticated. Single-minded, perhaps narrowminded it, some
  ways. Speaks wonderful English: his wife is American, of course.'
 'Artistic?'

                294
    'We think something is definitely brewing over there'

  Brian Samson hesitated. He was no judge of art. 'Playing the piano and so
  on? Yes, I heard that he's mad about the theatre, and plays jazz on the
  piano. But, after that one evening, I only met him in connection with
  work.'
 'And his wife?' Glenn Rensselaer had taken over the questioning.
 'The American? Well, she's .
 'Jewish. Yes, she is.'
  'She told good jokes that night. A very clever woman. Attractive, too. And
  she seems to know a lot of history: I wouldn't like to get into a political
  argument with her. Outspoken about the Nazis - too outspoken, I'd say. Her
  husband gets embarrassed at some of the things she says.' Samson looked at
  the two men, wondering what he was expected to say. He couldn't understand
  why the questioning had become so personal.
  Piper decided to elucidate. 'Life will get difficult for them under the
  Nazis, won't it, Samson;`
 'Unendurable, sir.'
  'We were. wondering whether to make an approach to Peter Winter. He could
  be useful to us. He knows a lot of things we'd like to find out more
  about.'
 'Offer him a job in England?' said Samson.
 'Or America. He has relatives in America.'
 'Oh, yes, someone told me that his mother is American.'
  Piper did not deny or confirm this suggestion. He said, 'Do you think the
  time is ripe? You worked for him; what do you think?'
  Samson smoked his cigar for a moment. 'He's very loyal to his father, sir.
  He might feel he was letting his father down. But the regime might start to
  put preisure on his wife. She loves him - that's obvious - but how much
  does he love his wife?'
  'I see,' said Piper. Samson noticed that the American was biting his lip.
  Samson said, 'But there's a close relationship between the brothers, too,
  unusually close. The elder man treats his younger brother with exaggerated
  consideration. Anything you plan would have to take the younger brother
  into account.'
  'That's very useful, Samson. Well, thank you.' The meeting was at an end.
  Samson wondered what he was expected to do with his magnificent cigar. He
  placed it carefully in the big cut-glass ashtray before he got up and shook
  hands with both men. 'Ever meet the parents, Samson?' said Piper as Samson
  was about to leave the room. He couldn't resist asking.

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  'Only once, sir. They came to the Bremen factory. Old Mr Harald was
  presenting certificates to young workers finishing their apprenticeship.'
 'What do you think of them? Did you see the American mother?'
  'A nice old couple, sir.'Samson looked from one man to the other. Piper
  looked a little flustered, and the American was wearing his slow smile *
  'Thank you, Samson. Drop in on Tuesday morning. I'd like to see you again
  before you go back.' Samson eyed the cigar but decided not to pick it up
  and continue smoking it.
  When Samson had left the room, Glenn Rensselaer grinned broadly and said,
  'A nice old couple. It serves you right, Boy. For that young man we are
  both old fossils.'
 Piper ignored the remark. 'What do you think?'
 'He's a good kid.'
  'A lad like that should have gone to university. He left school at fourteen
  and educated himself in public libraries and night schools. It's a crying
  shame. With a decent education he might have ended up doing my job. As it
  is, unless something unexpected happens, he'll be lucky to end up
  downstairs in Registry.'
  'He'll be lucky to even survive,'said Glenn Rensselaer. 'The Nazis will
  tighten everything up. It will get more and more dangerous for him. You
  notice what he was saying about the Political Police? That was a cry from
  the heart, Boy.'
  'I know, but I can't pull him out yet awhile. He's one of the best men we
  have. He's a very experienced engineer, you see. He can get a job where
  others can't.'
 'It was good of you to let me sit in.'
  'I know you are going to Berlin next week. I particularly wanted you to
  hear that business about the Political Police all coming under one
  control.'
 'It's not really my department, Boy.'
  'I think it is, Glenn, because if my sources have got it right, your nephew
  Paul Winter is one of the SS lawyers working on that development.'
 'Is he?'
 'So if you learn anything that we could use .
  'Sure, Boy, sure.' Wasn't that just like the British? They never gave
  anything away without strings being attached. Glenn sometimes regretted
  starting these unofficial exchanges of information. If the State Department
  got to hear, the~ d roast him.

                296
    'We think something is definitely brewing over there'

  'We think something is definitely brewing over there, something big. We
  know for certain that R61un now has a million paid, active brownshirts,
  with no fewer than three and a half million men on reserve. That is to say,
  five times as many men as the German army. We want to know everything there
  is to know about this new SS formation under Himmler. Whose side will he be
  on when the crisis comes?'
  'Okay, okay, okay. If I find out what's cooking, I'll be sure to let you
  know.'
 'I would appreciate it, old chap.'

       'It's good to be back in Berlin, Sis'

 Glenn looked round the redecorated and refurnished drawing room of the
 Winter house in Berlin. All the old furniture had gone; everything was new.
 He sighed. Despite his enthusiasm for progress, there were some things he
 preferred unchanged.
  It was Christmas. The mountain of presents he'd brought from all the family
  almost obscured the Christmas tree in the corner. From outside in the
  street came the sound of a band playing carols and the rattle of collection
  boxes.
  'Yov're looking younger and more beautiful than ever, sis,' he said.
  'When are you going to bring your wife and little Cyrus to see us here in
  Berlin, Glenn? Your photos just make me long to see them and hug them.'
  'We had this crazy idea of coming over on the Graf Zeppelin when it
  returned from the Century Exposition in Chicago, but there was a waiting
  list for tickets about I our miles long. The girl in the shipping office
  put our names down anyway, but I knew there was no chance.'
  'You should have written, Glenn. Harald still has dealings with the
  Zeppelin company. He might have been able to arrange it.'
  'I would have done that, but when I heard he'd been sick I thought it
  better not to bother him. We'll do it another time. Did you hear they're
  planning a new airship that will run scheduled transatlantic flights? Think
  of that, sis. We'll see each other a lot.'
 'That would be wonderful I Glenn. Tell me more about Dad.'
  'I've told you all there is to tell. They took him to the hospital that one
  night and gave him every sort of test. The doctor said he's as strong as a
  horse. He could easily live another ten years: the doctor

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 said that. Of course, he's had to take things easy - no smoking and no booze
 - but otherwise he's just fine, sis.'
 'And he must adore having a grandson to spoil.'
  'Sure, and Cyrus was twelve this year. Dad took him out to lunch on his
  birthday - "little Cy" we call him. Dad says that spoiling grandchildren is
  the only revenge a parent has.'
  'Little Cy. I'm so glad you named him after Dad. It was sweet of you.'
 'Yeah, Dad was pleased,' said Glenn.
  'Arid Dot's grandson Bret must be seven, the same age as Peter's Helena.'
 'It would be swell t,) get the whole family together.'
 'I can't imagine Harry crossing the Atlantic, even on an airship:
 'Tell me about Harry. What's been wrong?'
  'It all started with the Fischers. Last year, after the second presidential
  election, and Hitler's big share of the vote, Richard Fischer decided they
  sbould sell up.'
 'And leave Germany?'
 'Yes, and go to Paris.'
 'But their home . . . and everything
  'Yes, Foxy couldn't bear the thought of it. He's eighty-two, nearly as old
  as Dad. He was determined to stay put.'
 'But why go?'
  'The regime,' said Veronica. Lately it had become a way of explaining every
  horrible thing that happened.
  'But the Fischers are Roman Catholics. They were Catholics even before old
  Foxy was born.'
  'But the Nazis don't think like that. If your ancestors were Jews. you are
  a jew.'
 'What happened?'
  'They didn't go. Rit hard was arrested in August. "Fuchs" almost died of
  worry, and Harry went rushing around to everyone he knows.'
 'What was Richard charged with?'
  'No one could find out. They say lie was interrogated for four days.'
 'But he got out?'
 'He! signed all his Fischer holdings over to the Nazis.'
 'That must have been worth millions.'
  'The Nazis seized Wertheims department store, too. Jewish property i~,
  being appiopriated everywhere.'

                298
        'It's good to be back in Berlin, Sis'

 'But Richard is safe?'
  'I don't know. He was arrested again in September. They say he'll be
  charged with changing Reichsmarks into Swiss francs. It may be all trumped
  up~. They do that sometimes: just invent some offence and let you try to
  prove you are innocent.'
 'So what's happening now?,
  'Poor Fuchs is with relatives in the country, and Richard has disappeared.
  The police won't say if they're holding him or not. He might have gone
  abroad. He has cousins in England.'
 'Couldn't Pauli find out anything?'
  'No. G6ring runs the police here in Prussia. Himmler - who Pauli works for
  -- is in charge of Bavaria. Peter went along to Police Headquarters in
  Alexanderplatz and said he wanted to act as a lawyer for Richard Fischer
  and demanded to see him, but he got nowhere. I was worried. that Peter
  might get into trouble, too.'
  'Thank God Lottie has kept her U.S. passport. What about little Helena? Has
  she got a German passport?'
  'She's only seven years old, Glenn, so we don't have to worry about her for
  a little while.'
 'These people are maniacs,' said Glenn.
  'A lot of people support the Nazis,' said Veronica. 'At least they tell me
  they do.' She became flustered in the face of such unbridled criticism of
  the new regime. The Nazis were not like other political parties who'd come
  to power. The Nazis were vindictive, spiteful and very, very violent. Even
  in Berlin, these most outspoken of all Germans had quickly learned to curb
  their tongues. Nowadays only visitors like Glenn, and a few foolhardy
  opponents of the Nazis, voiced their innermost thoughts.
 'I can understand why Harry got sick.'
  'He was so frustrated, Glenn. Before, he's always been able to go to the
  right people, or get lawyers, or find out the facts. But the Nazis thrive
  on secrecy. He became ill, and the doctor told him that if he didn't have
  a complete rest he wouldn't be responsible for his health.'
 'But now he's back at work?'
  'Hauser drives him to the office at about ten-thirty. He has a look around,
  and then he comes home about three. But it's making too much work for
  Peter.'
  'But the companies are all run by directors. Isn't it time Peter took a
  holiday? You told me he hasn't been away for years.'
 'Poor Peter. He so hates Working for the company. In the old days

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 Harry had complete control, but now the directors have their own ideas
 about everything. Even though Peter tries to make sure that Harry's wishes
 are approved, sometimes Harry and Peter disagree. Peter is so much happier
 playing the piano. But in September Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry set up
 a "Chamber of Culture", with departments to control the theatre, the
 radio, the press, films and so on. Peter, being married to a Jew and
 associated with Brecht -and the other Marxists, who have run away to
 America - will probably find it difficult to continue his work in show
 business.' Veronica sighed. 'Young Hermig has been doing so well with his
 piano recitals, and many people thought Peter much more talented. I wish
 you'd speak with him, Glenn. See if you could persuade them both to take
 a vacation - just a vacation - back home. It would do wonders for him.
 Sometimes I think he's forgotten that he's half American.'
 'Married to Lottie, I'd say that would be difficult.'
 She smiled. 'Yes, you're right. Darling Lottie.'
 'And Pauli? We haven't talked of Pauli.'
  'Pauli. What can I tell you about him. He's still the same: he'll never
  change. The baby of the family. Marriage has worked wonders for him.
  Thank goodness he has Inge to look after him.'
 'But he lives in Munich?'
  'Next year they'll be back in Berlin. With the Nazis in power, all the
  Munich offices will be coming up to Berlin.'
 'But you said that G6ring runs the police in Berlin.'
  'Yes, dear, but that's all changing. by next summer, Pauli's department
  will be coordinating political-police offices all over Germany, and he'll
  be working in Berlin. They've even asked me to look out for an apartment
  for them. It will be so lovely having them back here.'
  'Next week I will be going to Friedrichshafon. The Graf Zeppelin is
  having a complete mechanical overhaul, from Spitze to stern. On the way
  to Bodensee I had a mind to stop over.'
  'Yes, do go and see him. Pauli would love that, Glenn. He's very fond of
  you. He's a real Rensselaer, and I've often thought you understand him
  better than anyone.'
  'I like him, sis, I really like him.' Glenn looked round the room. All
  the old Biedermeier furniture had gone, in favour of modern pieces.
  Modern woven fabrics on low angular chairs, chromium and mirror
  evervwhere, and a white carpet that he was constantly frightened of
  spilling coffee or ash upon. He guessed it was Harry's

                300
        ,iesgoodto be b"k in Berlin, Sis'

 idea. Harald Winter prided himself upon his taste in modern art. It made the
 room lighter, of course, but for him this wasn't Berlin, this was more like
 some flashv new 'roadhouse' on the New Jersey turnpike.
  'If only they could have a child. I pray for them. It would transform Inge,
  and wouldn't Pauli be the most wonderful father any child could ever wish
  for?'
  Glenn nodded and got up from his chair. Yes, that was true enough. Pauli,
  with his tricks and his jokes and his infectious laughter, would make any
  child happy. Glenn wished he'd spent more time with his two nephews. Now it
  was too late. Now they were men with their own lives to lead: they could
  have little use for an uncle, no matter how well meaning he might be.
  Sometimes he'd thought of bringing his wife here for a holiday, but not
  now. He didn't like what was going on in Germany.
  He looked out of the window to see the crowded street below. It was almost.
  Christmas and, except for the paths swept along the pavements and the
  roadways, there was snow everywhere. The shoppers looked happy enough,
  warm, well dressed and busy. In the shopwindow across the street was an
  elaborate nativity scene, complete with a model donkey that nodded. The
  only jarring note was a bored-looking brownshirt on the corner outside
  Schachtmeister's Konditorei holding a big sign that said 'The true German
  does not buy from a Jew'.
  But Berlin did not belong to Hitler. Berliners had seen too many fakes and
  charlatans to be fooled easily. And Hitler's promises about restoring
  agricultural land to the peasants cut no ice with those factory workers who
  had so) recently escaped the worse slavery of unmechanized farm labour Nor
  did the Nazi talk of nationalizing factories appeal to Berliners. who could
  see here in the city the dismal result of enterprises run by bureaucrats.
  And if Berlin was ready to succumb to the fanciful promises of politicians,
  it would be to those of the left, for Berlin was 'Red Berlin' and always
  had been.
 'It's good to be back in Berlin, sis,' said Glenn.

 301
           1934
             'Gesundheit!'

 Pauli had this filthy influenza. Inge said it was his fault for not wrapping
 up well, but anyway he couldn't shake it off. He'd been running a
 temperature for two days and he should have been in bed, and would have been
 except that Lothar Koch had made such a fuss. In any case, the last place he
 should have been at 4.3o a.m. on Saturday, June 30, 1934 was standing in
 front of the passenger buildings on the silent, empty and icy-cold
 Oberwiesenfeld, the airport for Munich.
  The breath of the two men condensed on the night air. 'He left Bonn at two
  a.m.,'said Lothar Koch. Behind the airport buildings a line of big cars
  were parked. The drivers had been sleeping. But now they'd been wakened and
  were wiping condensation from the glasswork and running the engines to have
  them warm and ready.
  Pauli wiped his nose and didn't answer. It was all right for Koch. He was
  used to outdoor duties, and he had woollen underwear to wrists and aqkles;
  and his new heavy black leather overcoat. Leather was the only thing that
  offered protection against this sort of cold wind, and Pauli decided to buy
  one from the same shop where Koch had got his. It had a removable woollen
  lining in a hideously vulgar plaid, not even a genuine tartan. Pauli's
  Scots nanny had taught him to despise such fakes, and he had decided
  against buying the coat. But this morning he wouldn't have cared what the
  lining was like. Anything would have been warmer than his thin raincoat.
  'Arc! you sure the Fdhrer himself is aboard?' said Pauli. He huddled in the
  shelter of a mobile generator, but it gave little protection against the
  piercing wind. 'Why would he come so early? He's not due in Bad Wiessee
  until eleven a.m.'
  'Something very special is happening. The teleprinters have been going all
  night,' said Koch. 'I was in the Brown House last night soon after Sepp
  Dietrich arrived with two Berlin Criminal Police officers.

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              'Gesundheit!'

 He'd come directly from a meeting with the Fiffirer. He said that two
 companies of the Leibstandarte are coming from BerlinLichterfelde. Does that
 bring back some happy memories?'
  Pauli nodded and wiped his nose again. Lichterfelde barracks. It was odd to
  think of the black-uniformed LAH, Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler - the
  Fiffirer's SS bodyguard - occupying the old Prussianarmy cadet school.
  Nineteen fourteen - that was a long time ago. He'd been just a child, and
  the world was foolish and innocent. If only he'd known what was waiting for
  him.
  'Oh, yes,' said Koch. 'The Leibstandarte are on their way by train to
  Kauf--ring, near Landesberg am Lech. Sepp Dietrich is meeting them there
  with t-ansport to take them to Bad Wiessee.'
  'I don't see any special significance in that,' said Pauli. 'The
  Leibstandarte companies have to provide security for the Fi1hrer's meeting
  with Rbhm.'
  'R6hm and all SA Obergruppenfiihrer, and Gruppenfiffirer and inspectors.
  All the SA top brass will be there,' said Koch. 'My pal from the Kripo got
  a look at the Fijhrer last night. He said he was in a really bad mood.'
 Pauli nodded and sneezed into his handkerchief.
  Koch added, 'But the most significant thing of all, my friend, happened
  last Monday. The German Officers' Association expelled Captain Ernst R61un.
  Expelled him! Why is the army distancing itself from him? I think those
  bastards know something we don't know.'
  'But which we soon will know,'said Pauli, and wiped his nose. In this cold
  wind his eyes were watering, too. He felt like death. Whatever was going to
  happen, he fervently hoped it would happen soon, so that he could go home
  and go to bed.
  There was the sound of a door slamming and a flash of yellow light from the
  building behind them. A man in blue coveralls and a leather jacket came out
  of a door marked 'Weather Bureau' and told them the plane would be landing
  in ten minutes. Soon afterwards all the runway lights came on, revealing a
  layer of mist through which the lights shone like dandelion puffballs. Then
  they switched on the big floodlights that illuminated the apron where the
  passengers disembarked.
  Now a group of people came from the airport buildings and stood looking at
  the northwestern sky. They didn't speak to one another. They stood like
  statues, still and silent. Some of the reception committee were easily
  mcognized. They were mostly men from the

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 Munich offices: personalities who had several closely written index cards
 devoted to them in Lothar's constantly updated SD records. There were a
 couple of army officers, and high-ranking officers of the SA, the SS and the
 Nazi Party. The only ones not in uniform were two airport officials, who
 kept looking at their watches.
  Pauli was the first person who spotted it in the streaky purple sky. It was
  the big three-engined Junkers that Lufthansa had refurbished specially for
  Hitler. It landed smoothly and taxied to where the steps had been wheeled
  into position. Lothar Koch and Pauli Winter kept well aside from the
  reception committee. Their orders would come from the office of Reich
  sfiffirer-S S Himmler: that's how important it was. Meanwhile, Koch was
  writing in his tiny black notebook the narne of everyone present. Koch kept
  a note of everything-, it had become almost an obsession with him.
  The aircraft's door opened, and as the first passengers emerged the
  reception committee formed a line, fidgeting about, like recruits on a
  parade ground, to be sure they were properly in position. The third man -
  a leather-coated figure - coming down the steep metal steps paused to look
  round, like an actor making his first appearance on a new stage. It was the
  Fiffirer - there was no mistaking him - and even from this distance it was
  clear that he was agitated. After him came Josef Goebbels, lame and
  cautious on the steps, then Otto Dietrich, Hitler"s press chief, and then
  - a dispatch case clamped tight under his arm, and keeping apart from the
  others - came Viktor Lutze, the SA leader in Hanover.
  The Junkers cut its engines one by one, and in the silence that followed,
  Pauli heard Hitler tell the Reichsheer officers, 'This is the blackest day
  of my life. But I shall go to Bad Wiessee and pass severe judgement. Tell
  that to General Aclam.'
  Koch eyed Pauli and smiled sardonically. Now, slowly, it was becoming
  clearer to them. They both knew that Lieutenant General Wilhelm Adam,
  commander of the Reichsheer's 7th Division in Munich, was one of their
  regular sources of information about SA activities. If R6hrn and his wen
  were to be the target of some punitive action, General Adam would be only
  too pleased to provide the army's help. No doubt that was where Dietrich,
  the LAH commander, would get his trucks.
  A tall man in the long black overcoat and peaked cap of the Allgerneine SS
  detached himself from Hitler's party and came over to them. 'Which of you
  is the lawyer?' he asked. He wore the

                304
              'Gesundheit!'

 headquarters cuffband, a badge that identified him as one of the adjutants
 that Himmler's offices teemed with nowadays.
 'I am,' said Pauli.
  'You'd better start now,' he said. 'Rbhm's Headquarters Guard might put up
  a roadblock. You'd better have your story ready.'
  'I have false papers,' said Koch. Even Koch was deferential to this august
  personage from the Reichsfiffirer's office.
  'Don't park near the Pension Hanselbauer. We don't want them alarmed.'
 'It's all prepared,' said Koch. 'I have chosen a place already.'
  'Very efficient,' said the tall man in a voice that might or might not have
  been sarcastic. 'Are you men armed?'
 'Yes,' said Koch.
  'And you, lawyer?' As he said it the adjutant looked away to see where
  Hitler's entourage were going.
 'I have a pistol,' said Pauli.
  'And do you know how to use it?' asked the man. He was too young to have
  been in the war. It was typical of such upstarts that he wore an army sabre
  instead of the SS sword that regulations prescribed.
  'Yes,' said Pauli, 'I know how.' Pauli did not share Koch's awe. He added,
  'Is the Fiffirer going to Bad Wiessee?'
  The tall SS adjutant looked at him with contempt. 'You'd better get
  started,' he said and turned away to rejoin Hitler's party, who were now
  getting into the cars.
  'Don't ask questions,'said Koch after they were on the road south. It was
  getting lighter every minute, and the cloudy sky changed from red to pink
  and curdled, like a bowl of soured cream. 'That's one of the basic rules.'
 'It's a damned stupid rule.'
  'Perhaps it is,' said Koch judiciously, 'but it's a rule nevertheless. If
  you wanted so badly to know where the Fiffirer is going, you should have
  asked me.'
 'Why? Do you know where they're all going?'
  'They're off to the Ministry of the Interior in Munich. The Fiffirer will
  give Minister Wagner a good talking to. After that they'll come out to Bad
  Wiessee.'
 'How do you know?'
  'I asked one of the drivers, That schmuck you asked had no idea where they
  were going. That's what made him upset when you asked.'

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         Nineteen hundred and thirty-four

  Pauli laughed despite his misery. He liked Koch. Koch had the right
  pragmatic approach-, that's why he'd falsified his age to get into the
  army, and that's why he'd become a sergeant major at some ridiculously
  young age.
  'And forget about roadblocks,' said Koch. 'R6hm's Headquarters Guard are in
  Munich. Does that oaf think we haven't been watching their movements all
  the time?'

 Bad Wiessee was a small resort near the Austrian border where the elderly
 came to retire and the infirm to enjoy the iodine baths. When the two men
 arrived in their car, the streets were empty. In the sanguine light of earlv
 morning, the still water of the lake reflected the surrounding mountains and
 the tall peak of the Wallberg, which was, for the few brief weeks of summer,
 devoid of snow.
  They parked in the back alley of the little Goldenes Kreuz Gasthof. From
  there they could see the road while remaining virtually out of sight. Bad
  Wiessee is only fifty-four kilometres from Munich, but it is high in the
  mountains, and in the unheated car Pauli shivered with the cold.
  Inge had provided them with some cold meat, bread rolls, and a small flask
  of hot soup. The soup would make Pauli feel better: Inge's home-made soup
  always did. There was not much of it, and he shared it between the two
  metal picnic cups.
  For a few minutes the two men sat there chewing in silence, but they
  watched the road constantly.
  'Here they come now,' said Koch. It was 6.30 a.m. He opened the car door to
  tip away his untouched cup of hot soup. Pauli could cheerfully have killed
  him.
 Pauli turned his head towards the road but saw nothing. 'Where?'
 'They won't have their lights on,' said Koch. 'There!'
  He could see them now, three vehicles coming slowly down the final stretch
  of road.
  'Where's Dietrich and his Leibstandarte?' said Koch anxiously. 'Oh my God!
  Where is he? How the hell can we protect the Fiihrer if he goes in there
  now?'
  The three cars rolled on right to the front door of the Pension Hansibauer.
  Someone there must have been expecting the visitors, for the door opened
  immediately. Men tumbled out of the cars. Besides the Fiffirer and his
  associates, there were six broadshouldered, reliable men from the Political
  Police department in Munich.

                3o6
              'Gesundheit!'

 'Come along!' said Koch 'This is us.'
  Pauli swigged down the rest of his soup, even though it burned his throat,
  and clambered out of the car into the colder air that came off the lake.
  Koch in the lead and Pauli chasing after him, they ran across the yard and
  entered the hotel building along with Hitler and the rest of them.
  The proprietors - a man and wife - were up and dressed. Perhaps they were
  preparing breakfast for the fully occupied hotel. The woman hurriedly took
  off her apron and started to welcome the Fiffirer formally. She even held
  the guest book ready for signing. Someone elbowed her aside roughly, LUt7e
  grabbed the visitors book and they raced up the stairs. By now everyone had
  pistols drawn, even Hitler.
  There was a banging of doors: they were looking for R6hm. There were shouts
  and screams. 'No, not there!' More shouts. 'He's not there, either!' A
  thump wits heard as something or someone was knocked to the floor. Many of
  the SA leaders were in bed with young men. Lutze shouted the number of
  R6hm's bedroom - he'd read it from the visitors' book he'd snatched from
  the old woman. Now Lutze's role was clear: Lutze was Judas.
  Someone was knocking at R6hm's door and shouting that he had something
  urgent to discuss. There was a delay, and then the door opened very wide.
  Rohm A as dressed in pylamas. He stood in the doorway, heavy with sleep and
  blinking in the light. Hitler called him a traitor and R61im shouted 'No.'
  Hitler said, 'Get dressed. You're under arrest.' His voice cracked with
  emotion. R6hm was his oldest friend, an associate and a supporter right
  from the very beginning, and still almost the only man who used the
  familiar A to the Fuhrer.
  Rohm, his scarred face flushed with anger, stared at him until Hitler
  turned away and banged on the door opposite Rbhm's. SA Obergruppenfuhrer
  EdMUDd Heines opened the door; behind him a young nude man was sitting on
  the bed, wide-eyed, and searching amongst the rumpled sheet,; for something
  to wear. Lutze pushed past Heines into the room He opened the chest of
  drawers and wardrobe, looking for weapons, but there were none. Whatever
  the SA leaders had been doing, there was no evidence of armed revolt.
  In the absence of Hitler's comments, Goebbels - the Fijhrer's mouthpiece -
  was shouting 'Nauseating!' and 'Revolting!' from the other end of the
  corridor. Pauli stood watching. Otto Dietrich, the press secretary, caught
  his eye and shrugged. The two men had

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 something in common. Pauli Winter was going to be asked to justify this
 madness in legal terms, and the press secretary would have to make it into
 something the public might swallow. Hitler croaked, 'Take him out and shoot
 him,' but no one was sure who was meant to be shot.
  Heines heard it, however. He turned to Lutze and said, 'Lutze, I've done
  nothing. Can't you help me?' Lutze, still rummaging through the wardrobe,
  said, 'I can do nothing. I can do nothing.'
  Koch pushed his way along the corridor. 'Come, Pauli.' He seemed to know
  where he was going. He kicked open the unlocked door of a room and went
  inside. Pauli followed, pistol ready. There was no SA man to be seen in
  this bedroom, only a boy in bed: skinny, very young, little more than a
  child. Koch pulled the sheets from his naked body and the boy flinched,
  shielding his face with his hands, as if expecting a blow. Koch turned away
  from the bed and pulled open the wardrobe. At first there seemed to be only
  clothes hanging there. Then Koch shouted, 'Out! Out, you bastard!' and a
  small hunched figure stepped out from the hanging garments.
  He was completely naked. A pale, wrinkled body contrasted oddly with hands
  and head darkened by sunlight. It was Graf. Without his spectacles, he had
  to screw up his eyes to see Koch and Pauli more clearly. 'Winter,' he said
  in a subdued voice. 'I thought it might be you.
  Pauli said nothing. For a moment the two men looked at each other. There
  would be no pleas from Graf. Even now, humiliated and vanquished, he
  wouldn't ask for help. 'You'd better get dressed,' said Pauli. He handed
  the old man his gold-rimmed spectacles.
  Koch watched the exchange with interest. He'd known all along, of course.
  And Lothar Koch couldn't resist telling you he knew. In a policeman it was
  a failing - perhaps Koch's only failing as a policeman.
  From outside in the corridor someone said, 'Lock them in the cellars. We'll
  take them to Stadelheim.' It wasn't clear who said it. Hitler was overcome
  with emotion and seemed almost incapable of speech. Perhaps it was
  Goebbels.
  Pauli Winter and Lothar Koch drove behind the truck that took the arrested
  men to Stadelheim Prison. They went the long way, right round the southern
  end of the lake, through Rottach-Egern and Tegernsee, having heard that the
  men of R6hm's HQ Guard were waiting on the direct route back, hoping to
  rescue their charges.

                3o8
              'Gesundheit!'

  By the time they got to Munich, the city was awake and at work. Armed men
  were in evidence everywhere. Nazi Party HQ in Briennerstrasse was
  completely sealed off - not by brownshirts or SS men but by armed soldiers
  of the Reichsheer. There were soldiers at the railway station, too, and
  plainclothes policemen were meeting every train and arresting SA leaders as
  they arrived for the scheduled SA conference with Hitler at i i:oo a.m.
  At the prison, Pauli recognized most of the brownshirt leaders detained.
  Some of the most famous names in Germany were that day written into the
  prison records, for the SA had found supporters in high places. Ritter von
  Krausser, Manfred von Killinger, HansPeter von Heydebreck, Hans Heyn, Georg
  von Detten, Hans Joachim von Falkenhausen . . . Rumours abounded throughout
  the city, everyone was confused, and fear could be seen in almost
  everyone's eyes.

 At the SD office, Pauli Winter was given a list of names and addresses. fie
 would serve the warrant - no more than a typed note -and Koch would make the
 arrest. There were no police cars to spare, so they had to take a taxicab.
 They had found and arrested six wanted men before they stopped for a quick
 lunch. They went to the big Bierkeller opposite the prison. It was crowded
 with policemen, most of them on the same task as Pauli and Koch. By this
 time Stadetheim Prison in central Munich was full. Prisoners were being
 taken up the road to where the old Royal Bavarian Gunpowder Factory
 buildings were now being used as a camp for 'enemies of the state'. Dachau
 concentration camp, they called it. Koch cursed their luck long and
 heartily. Dachau was seventeen kilometres away, the extra journeying was
 going to make much more work.
  Pauli sat back, exhausted. His influenza had weakened him so that every
  exertion was too much. He drank his 'soup with egg yolk' in the hope that
  it would give him more strength. It wasn't like Inge's. Inge's home-made
  soup - Ue everything else she did - was perfect. He loved Inge, and needed
  her, especially when he wasn't well. He was lucky to have such a wonderful,
  beautiful wife. She grumbled sometimes, but Inge did everything just the
  way he liked it.
  Koch, who seemed to enjoy the excitement that the day had brought, was at
  the next tablc swapping stories with plainclothesmen from the Political
  Police desk. Someone said that Viktor Lutze had been declared the new Chief
  of Staff of the SA, so things didn't look too rosy for R61im. There was a
  story going round that the

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 Stadelheim Prison authorities had put R6hm back into the same cell that he'd
 occupied when arrested for marching alongside Hitler after the attempted
 putsch in 1923. If true, it was a grim sort of joke, but it was the type of
 black humour that policemen enjoyed. Koch and his cronies howled with
 merriment at the idea of it.
  An even better story was that the team sent to arrest Dr Ludwig Schmitt, an
  ally of Hitler's old enemy Strasser, had come back with Dr Wilhelm Eduard
  Schmid, the well-known music critic of the Muenchener Neueste Nachrichten.
  'And, said the policeman telling the story, 'once inside Dachau the poor
  old bastard was executed, so it's too late to do anything about it now.'
  The other men drank their beer and exchanged self-conscious smiles. No one
  knew if it was true; there were many such stories going the rounds. And it
  was not only in Munich. S ummary executions - officially sanctioned murders
  - were taking place everywhere. The news just in said that in Berlin Dr
  Erich Klausener - a director of the Reich Transport Ministry and onetime
  head of the Police Section of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior - had
  been shot dead in his office by a uniformed SS man.
  Pauli closed his eyes listening to Koch and his pals and tried to clear his
  blocked sinus. He was suffering. Koch told him to eat up, but Pauli just
  couldn't bear to. Once they were in the car again, Koch looked down at the
  paper and said, 'The next on the list is SA Obersturmbannfiihrer Heinrich
  Brand!'
 Pauli almost jumped out of his skin. 'What? Brand?'
  'Just a joke, Pauli, old friend. No, your Brand is far too smart to get
  caught in the mangle. Brand is to be on Lutze's new staff, from whatl
  hear.'
  Koch looked at his watery-eyed, red-nosed friend and smiled. Koch knew
  about Pauli's court-martial, and his time with the Punishment Battalion.
  Koch had a spy in the army records office who checked up on everyone Koch
  needed to know about, but he never revealed that knowledge to Pauli, and
  had arranged the SD personnel files so that Pauli Winter's army record was
  unblemished. Koch regarded such little favours as the sort of thing any
  comrade would expect of another.
  They arrested four more SA leaders that afternoon. The elderly brownshirts
  went meekly and with only mild complaints. It was the journey to Dachau
  that was so tiring. By 6:oo p.m. the two men reported back to the SD office
  in Zuccalistrasse 4. Pauli sank down behind his desk while Koch found for
  him the bottle of schnapps they kept in the filing cabinet. 'What a day!'
  said Pauli, but just as he

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              'Gesundheit!'

 was signing out, a clerk told him that a lawyer was required at Stadelheirn
 Prison. He was to report to SS-Grupperiffilirer Sepp Dietrich.
  He found the well-known Leibstandarte cornmander in the courtyard of the
  old prison. The cobbled yard was dark, the low evening sun making the
  rooftops golden and the enclosed yard blue in the suminer-evening light.
  Dietrich, forty-two years old, was a broad-shouldered man who'd been a
  manual worker for most of his life: farmlabourer, petrol-pump attendant,
  customs officer, factory worker. Hitler had chosen him as a personal
  bodyguard back in the days when he needed physical protection at his
  meetings. Now Dietrich was an SS general, but he'd not lost the common
  touch. When Pauli found him, he was smoking a cigarette and chatting in
  Bavarian dialect with six (of his black-uniformed soldiers and a tall young
  subaltern with shiny new officer's badges.
  ' Hello, Pauh,' said Dietrich, still speaking in his strong Bavarian
  accent. He prided himselfort his informality. 'It looks like we're ready to
  go.' He threw down his cigarette and ground it under the heel of his
  polished boot. The firing squad picked up their rifles. 'I want it all neat
  and tidy,' said Dietrich. He put an arm round Pauli's shoulder and walked
  him away from the soldiers and the young officer.
 Yes, Gruppenfiffirer,' said Pauli.
  You're the legal expert. I want it all neat and tidy.' He looked into
  Pauli's watery eyes and, to be sure that it was clear, said, 'We're
  executing these SA people. Not R6hm: he stays in custody while the FOhrer
  thinks it over. What's the normal procedure?'
 'A trial and a verdict,' said Pauli.
  Dietrich was a simple man, and now he smiled as if Pauli had made a subtle
  joke. -rhe Fillirer has tried them and found them guilty,' he said.
  Pauli wiped his nose and his eyes. Dietrich was staring at him as if he
  might be crying. He felt a fool. 'Do you have orders?'
  'I don't want the Public Prosecutor chasing me,' said Dietrich, turning his
  back and lowering his voice. With remarkable bravery, the Munich Public
  Prosecutor had persuaded the Ministry of Justice to file cases for
  'incitement to murder' against the Dachau camp commandant and two of his
  officials.
  'Don't worry,' said Pauli. 'The Minister of the Interior told the Cabinet
  that any investigation of Dachau must be refused for reasons of state
  policy. This will come under the same heading.'

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         Nineteen hundred and thirty-four

  'But the camp commandant was sacked,'said Dietrich, scowling. He didn't
  want to risk the same fate.
  'It will be all right,' said Pauli, who wanted only to go home and go to
  bed. 'But, for legal reasons, your officer had better read the sentence to
  each man before the execution takes place.' Pauli felt a sneeze building up
  and had his handkerchief ready for it. He sneezed.
  'Gesundheit!' said Dietrich politely, and beckoned the young officer over
  to them. 'Tell him what to say,' he instructed Pauli.
  Thinking quickly, Pauli said, 'Something like "You have been condemned to
  death by the Fiihrer." ' He blew his nose.
 'Is that enough?' said Dietrich doubtfully.
  'They only have to be told the sentence,' said Pauli. 'That's the law.'
  ' "Heil Hitler" at the end,' said Dietrich. ' "You have been condemned to
  death by the Fiffirer. Sentence to be carried out herewith. Heil Hitler."
  Got it?'
 'Yes, Gruppenfiihrer,' said the subaltern.
  Crack! The sound of the rifles echoed round and round the narrow prison
  courtyard. The small barred windows were silent and dark, with
  bright-orange rust marks disfiguring the grey bricks. Yet Pauli could not
  get over the feeling that he was being watched by many eyes.
  Next! Next! Next! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Cold and wet from a quick drenching
  under a cold shower, the SA leaders arrived one by one in the yard doorway,
  frightened and bewildered. The young SS officer's face was impassive, but
  he gabbled too quickly through the sentences and sometimes stumbled over
  the words.
  More than one of the prisoners stood erect and met the bullets with a Nazi
  salute and a shouted 'Heil Hitler!' believing that they - and their
  Ffihrer, too - were the victims of an SS coup.
  Pauli had qualms when Edmund Heines crumpled under the bullets. As well as
  being SA-Obergruppenfiihrer, Heines was the Police President of Breslau.
  And even Dietrich's iron nerve seemed to go as SA-0bergruppenfiffirer
  Schneidhuber faced the firing squad. Schneidhuber was Police President of
  Munich.
  But the shooting went on. Pauli watched it dispassionately. Better men than
  this had died alongside him in the war, he reminded himself. If the truth
  was known, some of the British and Frenchmen he'd killed were more to be
  pitied. Only when Captain Graf came into the courtyard did Pauli feel like
  turning his eyes away. But he

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              'Gesundheit!'

 didn't. He watched Graf standing erect in front of the wall that was now
 chipped and broken with rifle fire. The dust of the broken brickwork hung in
 the air like smoke, and mingled with the cordite to make a unique stink that
 he never forgot.
  Graf refused a blindfold. He looked at Pauli right to the end. And Pauli
  stared back at him. Graf didn't shout 'Heil Hitler' or give the Nazi
  salute. He had never been a great admirer of Hitler, or of the men around
  him. Graf was one hundred per cent soldier; the Freikorps and the SA were
  just ways of holding on to a soldier's mode of life. When the volley came
  Graf was torn in two and the blood spurted like a fountain. His death
  seemed bloodie~ than the others. Perhaps because a chance bullet clipped an
  artery - or perhaps because Pauli felt it more. Graf had been a comrade, a
  good comrade, and a man does not lightly lose a friend. But Graf was a
  soldier-, it was a good enough way for a soldier to go.

   'Leave the presidi7icy vacant, what a great idea'

 It wasn't turning out to be the successful dinner party that Inge had
 planned and she was unhappy. It was the first time that they had had
 guests in this new Berlin apartment that had been redecorated to
 their own wishes, and she'd had her dress made specially for the
 occasion. It was a long slinky bias-cut gold satin gown that hugged
 her figure. Sleeveless, with a plunging neckline, it revealed her
 wonderful skin. Inge had invited her sister Lisl with he ' r husband,
 Erich Hennig. The guest of honour was to be Reichsminister Fritz
 Esser, now one of the party luminaries, a member of the cabinet, and
 a close associate of the Fillirer. But Fritz Esser bad sent a huge bunch
 of flowers and a note that said he was delayed in meetings at the
 Reichskanzlei and wouldn't arrive until after dinner.
  'It's because the President is so sick,' Inge explained to Erich, her
  brother-in-law, as if she was well informed about the state of President
  Hindenburg's health. 'I feel so concerned about the Ffilixer. He looks
  tired.' The two sisters always spoke of Hitler as a couple of starry-eyed
  schoolgirls might speak of an adorable hockey coach. It was a competition
  between them, a contest in which a curiously large proportion of Germany's
  female population also participated.
  'I know,,' said Lisl Hennig. 'We're hoping Erich will play before the
  Fiffirer next year at the Bach Festival in Leipzig.'

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         Nineteen hundred and thirty-four

  Lisl was always saying that her husband would be playing at one of the
  concerts Hitler attended. It would be impetus enough to put Erich Hennig
  far ahead of his rivals. But Adolf Hitler did not attend many such
  musical events, and Erich's career was at present in the doldrums.
  Hennig's piano recitals, and his occasional performances with large
  orchestras, were to be heard in far-off German provinces, while Berlin's
  concert halls were monopolized by more famous performers of a previous
  generation.
  In the hope of pleasing his musical guest, Pauli said, 'Fritz Esser was
  with the Filhrer at Bayreuth last week. They saw Das Rheingold. Fritz
  said it was the best ever.'
  It proved not so pleasing. 'Fritz Esser!' said Hennig contemptuously.
  'And how many other productions of Das Rheingold has he seen?'
  Pauh smiled and poured more wine. Inge had always said the Hennigs were
  jealous of Pauli's longterm friendship with the very influential I-ritz
  Esser. To say nothing of Pauli's regular meetings with Heydrich, Himmler,
  and Josef Goebbels. Perhaps it was true.
  It was a warm SUMDier evening, uncomfortably warm, and the Winters'
  apartment had the windows open to catch the breeze. Their new cook was
  determined to show her skills for such a celebrated guest and had
  produced an exquisite meal of fresh tomato soup, trout and then roast
  beef, wiih Pauli's favourite chocolate cake to follow.
  The absence of Fritz was a disappointment to all, but it gave the two
  sisters a chance to talk about family matters. The Hennigs now had a
  four-year-old son, and their present apartment was not big enough. Also
  Frau Wisliceny had died the previous month, and now that the initial
  shock was over they were able to discuss more practical problems.
  'Papa has enough money,' said Lisl Hennig. 'He has the pension and his
  investments.'
  'But not enough to keep that big house going,' added Erich Hennig
  quickly. Lisl and Erich had discussed it before coming tonight, thought
  Pauli. Erich was shrewd. Peter had always hated him, of course, and
  sometimes Pauli could see what his brother disliked. Politics, business,
  or the custody of his father-in-law's house, Erich Hennig would always
  manage it to his own advantage.
  'He told me he wanted to go in one of those new service apartments round
  the corner, on Prenzlauer Promenade,' said Pauli in an innocent voice.
 It amused him to see that this had exactly the effect he expected.

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     'Leave the presidency vcacant, what a great idea'

 'One bedroom, one bathroom, one drawing room and a tiny little kitchen!'
 said Erich excitedly. 'He'd go crazy in a tiny place like that.'
  just to keep Erich agitated, Pauli said, 'He said he'd cat most of his
  meals downstairs in the restaurant. :
  'Ridiculous!' said Erich Hennig. He says that now, but wait until he's
  tried it for a few months.'
  It was quite amusing to bait Erich, thought Pauli. He decided to memorize
  every word: it would amuse Peter no end. 'But he eats in restaurants now,'
  said Pauli. 'He likes restaurants. Even before your poor mama died, they
  went to restaurants a lot.'
  Inge knew what Pauli was doing, of course, and now she indicated that it
  had gone far enough. 'Let's bear what Lisl thinks,' said Inge.
  'We were thinking of moving in with Papa,' said Lisl. 'He needs someone to
  look after him. He could eat with us, and we could see to his laundry and
  so on. The maid we have is a wonderful laundress. She even does Erich's
  dress shirts for his concert performances.'
  'That would mean a lot (if extra work for you,' said Inge. 'It's such a big
  house.'
  Lisl said, 'It wouldn't mean any extra work. We'd keep Papa's two girls, so
  we'd have three staff.'
 'Couldn't Papa move to your apartment?' said Pauli.
 'We're too cramped already,' said Erich.
  'I know what you're thinking,' said Lisi. 'Papa's house is partly Inge's;
  of course it is.'
  'Professor Wisliceny is getting old,' said Erich. 'He can't last that much
  longer.'
  Lisl said, 'When Papa dies, Inge, then we wouldn't expect to keep the
  house.'
  Erich was not prepared to be a party to such rash and selfless promises. He
  said, 'On the other hand, looking after your father will be a lot ofextra
  work for Lisl.'
 'She just said it wouldn't be any extra work,' said Pauli.
  'Be quiet, Pauh,' said Inge. She'd already been considering how much to
  spend, and where to invest the remainder of the proceeds of her share of
  the big Wisliceny house. Similar houses round the corner from Papa in Kant
  Strasse, were fetching high prices nowadays. The Ku-damm area had gone up
  and up. Some speculator would buy it to convert to apartments, or even into
  a hotel.
  'We need a room for our little one and two rooms for the nanny,' said Lisl.
  'And it would help Erich to prepare for his concert.'

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 'What concert?' asked Inge.
  'Erich has this wonderful chance to play the Mozart wind quintet in
  Breslau,' said Lisl. 'But the new tenants downstairs from us have been
  complaining about the piano.'
  'If you are thinking of having wind quintets playing there, you'll have
  Professor Wisliceny's neighbours complaining, too,'said Pauli.
  'It's the K6chel 452,' said Erich Hermig slowly and patiently. 'Piano
  with wind instruments. I would only be practising the piano part. We have
  rehearsal rooms for the ensemble.' He smiled as a children's photographer
  smiles at a particularly difficult sitter.
  'In Papa's house the walls are so much thicker,' said Lisl resolutely.
  'Think of the times Mama had musical events there.'
  'If Papa agrees, then of course you must,'said Inge suddenly. 'You need
  the extra rooms.'
  Pauli looked at her with some surprise, but Inge always gave in to her
  younger sister, or so it seemed to him. He wondered if that was the way
  other people saw the relationship between him and Peter.
 'Thank you, Inge,' said Lisl.
  'We'll drink to it,' said Inge, reaching for the wine. In some ways the
  decision was a reliefto her. It would mean that Papa would be properly
  looked after. She would have been worried to have her father living
  alone. 'When you move out, we'll sell and share the money.' The Hennigs
  drank the wine, but Pauli noticed that they didn't confirm the idea of
  eventually sharing the money.
  After the Hennigs had gone, Inge seemed to regret her impulsive
  generosity. She was often like that: she gave away things she treasured
  and then regretted it, venting her consequent anger not upon herself but
  upon the person to whom she'd been so generous. Pauli poured a nightcap
  for her, and they sat together in the study while he glanced through some
  papers from his office.
  'They'll never move out,' said Inge sadly. 'We'll never see a pfermig
  from Papa's lovely house.' She was also thinking about the extra space
  they'd need when she had babies, but she didn't say that.
  'I doubt if they'll be able to afford it after your father goes, darling.
  It must cost a lot of money to keep up. I remember your father
  complaining about the enormous bill for that new roof a couple of years
  ago.'
 'Well, at least they won't have the roof to worry about,' said Inge.
 Pauli laughed. His wife was determined to be downhearted.
  'I'm going to bed, darling,' she said. 'Don't be long.' She smiled and
  kissed him. Some husbands might have scolded a wife who'd so

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     'Leave the presidency vacant, what a great idea'

 foolishly abandoned a large part of her inheritance, but Pauli would never
 look at it like that. Pauli didn't care much about possessions, beyond his
 basic comfort. Sometimes she felt he wouldn't even care if he lost her.

 It was hall'past midnight when Fritz Esser rang the bell. Inge was in bed
 and asleep - Pauli was sitting in his tiny study, reading through a sheaf of
 regulations and amendments; these now appeared on his desk in
 ever-increasing amounts.
  Fritz Esser stood in the hallway with a stupid grin on his face. At first
  Pauli thought he was drunk, but no one ever came drunk from a meeting with
  the Filhrer, except drunk with happiness.
  'I pissed myself laughing,' shouted Esser as Pauli showed him into the
  little study and brought out a bottle of fine old French brandy. Fritz was
  forty last birthday. He laughed. Except for his dark eyes and his amazing
  collection of crowded, broken and irregular teeth, this man was scarcely
  recognizable as the lean youth who'd pulled the Winter boys out of the
  Baltic so long ago. Esser had put on weight to a point where his suits had
  to be tailored for him. They were all made by one of Berlin's best tailors.
  Pauli's weight went up and down, but Inge nagged him when he had to diet.
  Esser was unmarried and had no such restrictions. Still, Esser was tall and
  big-boned: he could put on this much weight without appearing ridiculous.
 'What happened?' said Pauli.
  'It's not what's happened,' said Esser, 'it's what's going to happen
  tomorrow. The Chancellery is a madhouse: generals, admirals, Gauleiters and
  all the press and propaganda bigwigs.'
  'Hindenburg? Has he gone?' Hindenburg was dying; everyone knew that it was
  just a matter of time.
  'Those army bastards,' said Esser. He drank some brandy and laughed again.
  It was Fritz Esser's naughty-boy laugh, with something of a snigger in it.
  'Those generals are too stupid to know when it's raining. Which of those
  idiots chose tomorrow as the day for their big military celebration? They
  haven't won a war for over half a century. They certainly can't celebrate
  victory day for the last show - which they lost - so they decide to
  celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the day the Kaiser ordered
  mobilization.' He laughed again, a loud, hearty laugh that suited his big
  frame. He picked up the brandy bottle and poured more for himself. They
  knew each other well. In Pauli Winter's house he didn't have to ask for
  what he wanted: he helped himself. 'Remember mobilization day, 1914?'

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         Nineteen hundred and thirty-four

  'I remember,' said Pauli. That fateful day in 194 was etched deeply into
  his memory. At the Lichterfelde cadet school there had been a special
  parade. His parents had attended; Mama had cried.
  'So now all the toy generals are taken out of their boxes and wound up,
  ready to march backwards and forwards to the music of their tin-soldier
  bands. The generals have put on their nicest uniforms and groomed their pet
  donkeys.... And what's going to happen? That inconsiderate old bastard Paul
  Ludwig Hans von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg is going to snuff it ...
  and screw up the whole bloody show. Ha, ha, ha! It's the best laugh I've
  had since they shot that bastard R6hrn last month.'
 'Are you sure about Hindenburg?'
  'I was with the Rihrer when the latest doctor's bulletin was delivered. The
  army will look such fools. Blomberg, that wonderful War Minister of ours,
  is in the Bendlerblock sending teleprinter messages to every army unit in
  Germany cancelling the celebration and ordering them to prepare funeral
  ceremonies instead.'
 'What did the Fiffirer say?'
  'Oh, naturally, the Ribrer was very upset,' said Esser, in a voice that
  indicated that the Fijhrer wasn't upset at all. 'The Fillixer will become
  president now and probably combine the rank of chancellor with it.'
 'That would be illegal,' said Pauli.
'Are : ou sure?' He stopped drinking, put the glass down, and Y
 wiped his mouth.
  'You should know that, Fritz. You were a deputy in 1932, when the Reichstag
  passed the amendment. It said that in the event of the President's death,
  the duties of president will be performed by the president of the High
  Court of Justice until a new election is held.'
 'Authority doesn't automatically pass to the Chancellor?'
 'No, it doesn't.'
 'President of the High Court of Justice? You can't be serious.'
 'I'm perfectly serious,' said Pauli.
  'You're forgetting "The Enabling Act",' said Fritz Esser. 'That gives h;m
  power to do anything he wants.'
  'Except interfere with the authority of the presidency. That was
  specifically excluded.'
  'Jesus Christ! An election? That could ruin everything. I'd better go back
  and make sure the Fijhrer knows.'
  'Sit down and relax a moment, Fritz.' Fritz Esser cautiously sipped at his
  brandy and sat down to think it over.

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     'Leave the presidency vacant, what a great idea'

  'Betternot to become president,' said Pauli, to make conversation. 'If
  Adolf Hitler becomes president, he'll have to take an oath to uphold the
  constitution. That will limit his powers.'
 'How could he avoid it?'
 'He could leave the presidency vacant and create a new office.'
 'For instance?'
 'Just call himself Fiihrer, for instance.'
  'Fi1hrer. Yes, excellent. Chancellor and Fiffirer - he could combine those
  roles. He's sending for the service chiefs. He's going to make them swear
  an oath of allegiance.'
 'That would be a way round it,' said Pauli.
 'A way round what?' said Esser.
  'Normally the army swears an oath of allegiance to the presidency and, as
  a safeguard, the President takes an oath to uphold the constitution. That's
  how the system works.'
  'You mean, get the army to swear an oath to the Fiffirer, then leave the
  presidency vacant, so that he doesn't have to promise to uphold the
  constitution. That's damned clever, Pauli. The FUhrer will like that.'
  He picked up his glass, then, remembering his Fiffirer's abstinence, put it
  down again. 'I'd better get going. There's going to be the devil of a lot
  to do. It's a good thing I didn't let my driver off for an hour-, I usually
  do when I come to see you.'
 'If youmust go, Fritz.'
  'You're too bright for that job you're doing with the Gestapo, Pauli. I'll
  have to find you something better than that.'
 'I'm okay, Fritz. It's interesting and I'm good at it.'
 'Leave the presidency vacant - what a great idea.'

 319
           t936%%
            , Rinse and spit aue

 Tinse and spit out,'said Dr Volkmann. 'Don't eat on that side for an hour or
 two. I'll need to see you one more time.' He pressed the foot pedal, and the
 dentist's chair slowly resumed the upright position.
  'Thank you,' said Peter Winter. He washed out his mouth and wiped his lips.
 'You can go, Ursula, Volkmann told his nurse.
 'Thank you, Herr Doktor.'
  When they heard the outer door close after her, Isaac Volkmann said, 'Her
  mother's sick, and I have no more patients this afternoon.'
 Peter looked at the clock. It was only three-fifteen.
  Volkmann said, 'I've lost a lot of patients over the last six months. I'm
  seriously considering whether I should move out of the Kudamm area.'
 'But your sort of patients expect to come here, to a smart address.'
  'The radio, film and theatre crowd, you mean? I'm afraid I've already lost
  a lot of those.'
 'I'm sorry,' said Peter.
  'I don't exactly blame them,'said Volkmann. 'They depend on the Nazis for
  their living, and Goebbels is one of the worst anti-Semites of the lot. And
  now young Ursula has given notice. She's been with me for over three years,
  but her father says he doesn't want her working for a Jew.'
 'She's lucky to have a job at all,' said Peter.
  'She'll get another job all right. The Nazis have reduced unemployment,
  Peter - we have to be fair about that.'
  'And how have they done it?' said Peter. 'By drafting men to work on the
  land or to build the Autobahnen. Or by giving them jobs working at the
  local Nazi Party office for little or no wages.'
 'I have to be thankful I'm not in the army or the civil service,' said

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            'Rinse and spit out'

 Volkmann, 'or I'd be unemployed, too. At least they are allowing me to
 work.'
 'These people are mad,' said Peter.
  Volkmann smiled ruefully. 'The funny thing is that in many ways I agree
  with this Hitler fellow. I am proud to be a German nationalist. I resent
  every last clause of that damned Versailles Treaty. I, too, hate the
  communists, and despise the pseudo-intellectuals and their caf6-society
  Marxism. There are many ways in which I support Hitler; why must he pursue
  this insane vendetta against us?'
 'I don't know,' said Peter.
  'And shall I tell you something, Peter, old friend. When I switched on the
  radio last Saturday and heard that our soldiers had marched into the
  Rhineland, I exulted. He was right to take our sacred German soil back from
  the French.'
  'I suppose so,' said Peter. He was always embarrassed when Isaac became
  emotional, as he so often did on the subject of his homeland.
 'And you are busy?'
  Peter nodded. 'We are hoping to get some contracts for coal byproducts. It
  would make a great difference to next year's shareholders' report.'
 'What sort of by-products: oil?'
  'Yes, and now 1. G. Farben have discovered how to make very good synthetic
  rubber, too.'
 'Is it cheap?'
  'No, thank goodness,' said Peter, and laughed. 'It's damned expensive.'
 'So why don't we buy rubber and oil on the world market?'
  'Germany has a lot of coal, Isaac. It will keep our miners employed.'
  'That's not the reason, my friend, and you know it. This fellow is
  determined to fight a war.'
  We must be ready to defend ourselves, Isaac. The Russians and Poles are not
  to be trusted.'
  'I hope to God I'm wrong,'said Volkmann. 'Oh, I almost forgot. I must
  return Lottie's passport.'
 'Lottie's passport?'
  Volkmann had already reached it from where it was hidden in his locked
  drugs cabinet before he looked up and registered Peter's surprise. 'Oh
  dear! Didn'i you know?'
 'What? What's it all about, Isaac?'
 Volkmann stood uncertain whether to hand him the package. 'I

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 would hate to be the cause of a disagreement between you, Peter. You are
 our best and most loyal friends.'
 'What are you doing with Lottie's U.S. passport, Isaac?,
  Again the dentist hesii ated, but decided that he had no choice but to
  tell everything. 'Your wife loaned her passport to a friend of mine. We
  have been looking at the visas in it.'
  'Don't talk in riddles, Isaac. You mean you've been copying the visas to
  make forgeries?'
  'Yes, that is what I mean, Peter. I thought you knew about it. I suppose
  it must come as a shock to you.'
 'And forging U.S. passports, too?'
  'Some of my people are desperate, Peter. Terrible things are happening
  in this country of ours.'
 'You've no right to put my wife in danger.'
  'I didn't put her in danger. Lottie insisted that her passport be used,
  and as a Jew she has the right to decide such things.'
  'She is my wife, and we have a young child. What would happen if ... I
 'I know, I know.
 'You should not have encouraged her.'
  'I did everything I could to dissuade her, Peter. Everything! I swear I
  did. I thought she must have discussed it with you.'
  'And you should not be mixed up in such activity, Isaac. These people are
  criminals and you are an accessory.'
  'Do riot quote the letter of the law, my friend, when justice lies
  bleeding at my feet.'
 'For such things people go io prison for life, Isaac.'
  'For the sin of being born a Jew, people are being done to death. Should
  I shun my duty as a Jew, to serve a regime that is murdering my people?'
  Peter took the passport and put it into his pocket. 'Please, Isaac. No
  more. She is a Jew, but she is also my wife.'
  Isaac Volkmann did not give Peter Winter the assurance he sought. 'Shall
  we say next Tuesday at 2.30 P.m.? It gives you a chance to lunch. There
  is very little to do except scaling, but I'd like to look again.'
  'That. will be very convenient,' said Peter. He took his hat and gloves
  from the stand in the hall. Volkmann followed him to see him out.
 'Your wife is a very determined woman, Peter,' he said.

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           'Rinse and spit out'

  'Next week, then,' said Peter. He nodded to Volkmann and departed.
  Usually he shook hands when he said goodbye, but today he didn't; and he
  didn't say goodbye, either.

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            IL937 19
      'You know what these old cops are like'

 The Geheimes Staatspofizeiamt - the Gestapa, or what people called the
 Gestapo - had taken over the huge art school in Prinz-Albrecht-SLrasse, and
 Pauli Winter had been assigned an office on the third floor, overlooking the
 magnificent gardens they shared with the adjoining little palace fleydrich
 had taken over for his SID.
  Now that the Nazis had consolidated their political control of the nation,
  fundamental changes were made to police forces, too. Pauli Winter -- aided
  by six clerks and the two young lawyers who worked under him - had spent
  long working weeks, over many months, tackling the organization plan for
  the Security Police (Sipo). At one time this, authority had included the
  whole police organization, from traffic police to Gendarmerie. But now that
  all the German police forces had come under the command of SS-Reichsfiihrer
  Hinimler, a new sort of Sipo was being formed from just the most powerful
  units - the Criminal Police (Kripo) and the Political Police.
  This newly created Sipo, under the direction of Heydrich's Hauptarnt
  Sicherheitspolizei, ranked as a ministerial authority and came directly
  under the Reich'F Ministry of the Interior.
  It made the Sipo potemially one of the most powerful instruments of
  repression ever seen in modern society. But it was Pauli Winter's report,
  based upon the legal restrictions of Paragraph 42 of the Reich Criminal
  Code, that enabled Himmler's policemen to be their own judge and jury.
  Paragraph 42 authorized law courts throughout Germany to order the
  'preventive arrest' of habitual criminals and other potential
  troublemakers. But it was the legal work of Dr Pauli Winter that provided
  the notion that, under the v61kisch concept of German law, people and
  police must work together to maintain law and order. So, argued Winter's
  long and carefully worded report, in the case of a preventive arrest, the
  Sipo represented the police and the arrested

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 person the 'people'. Thus it was lawful for the Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei
 to order preventive arrest without going to the law courts. This was a
 triumph for Himmler, the SS-Reichsfiihrer - a triumph of bureaucracy.
  To avoid too much discussion about guilt or innocence, the arrested persons
  were usually categorized as Volksschidling (antisocial malefactors), a
  description that included prostitutes, beggars, homosexuals, traffic
  offi-nders, psychopaths, grumblers, the tellers of anti-Nazi jokes, and
  anyone who'd'refused without adequate reason employment offered to them on
  two occasions'.
  The difficulties that would have come from delivering prisoners to prisons
  without the necessary court documents were avoided by delivering the
  arrested people to concentration camps, which also came under the
  SS-Reiclisfiffirer's command. The Ministry of Justice objected to this, but
  the objections were ignored.
  So, by 11937 in Nazi Germany, or what the Goebbels propaganda machine
  preferred to call the Third Reich, the courts and the whole legal system
  had been short-circuited. The powers of arrest-, judgement and punishment
  - terrible punishment, torture and death - could be instantly used against
  anyone the Nazis didn't like.

 It was Match 9, 1937, when the new powers were first put into effect. From
 the Berlin Police Headquarters in Alexanderplatz, Kripo offices throughout
 Germany were instructed to take into preventive arrest two thousand people
 who might commit a crime, might offend against morality, or might otherwise
 act against the Nazi regime. They were delivered by the police to the
 nearest concentration camp. It was only the beginning.
  For Pauli Winter, March 1937 marked the end of a lot of thankless and
  tedious administrative work. Up on the third floor he missed the excitement
  of real police work, and it was years since he'd pitted his wits against
  some lawyer in the rough and tumble of the local courts.
  He missed Lothar Koch, too. Lothar could have come up here to where the
  decisions were made, and there would have been more pay, too. But Lothar
  was smart: lie chose to remain downstairs and deal with people every day.
  Up here was just a corridor of cramped offices where self-important
  bureaucrats dictated long documents that were sent to policemen who would
  manage better without them.
  'Pauli?' It was the end of a long day, and Pauli was putting a few things
  into a briefcase before going home to dinner. The offices, hastily

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 converted to provide extra accommodation, were small and ill-lit, and his
 visitor was in the shadow, out of range of his desktop light.
  'Lothar. What are you doing up here? Want some coffee?' He was always
  pleased to see Loiliar, and the more downcast he looked, with his big
  mournful eyes and shaggy eyebrows, the more Pauli wanted to laugh at him.
  'Come in, come in.'
 'I had to see you. It's urgent.'
  'What is it? Who have you got out thereF Pauli peered. The offices all had
  glass panels through which people could be seen walking down the corridor.
 'Can I bring him in? It's one of my detectives.'
  'If you wish,' said Pauli, disappointed that he was not going to have the
  pleasure of a chat.
  The detective came in. He was deferential. Everyone knew Pauli Winter by
  reputation. Pauli was a minor celebrity: Pauli was the man who knew Fritz
  Esser, Pauli had cracked Para 42, Pauli was the man who lunched with
  Heydrich, Pauli had a house on the Obersalzberg.
  The detective was named Theodor Steiner, a beer-bellied old-timer who'd got
  into the plainclothes force after many years on the street. A red-faced man
  with a big rosy nose and circular-shaped horn-rimmed glasses that he had to
  wear when reading from his notebook.
  'Steiner is going to pull in that forgery riag who've been doing the travel
  documents. Do you know about that?'
  'No,' said Pauli. 'Should I know about it?' He indicated two little
  caneback chairs, but his visitors remained standing.
  'It's been on the sheets for months. They've been leading us a merry
  dance.'
 'Travel documents?' said Pauli. He was puzzled.
  'Even American passports. One of our undercover agents at the
  Hamburg-Amerika Line offices picked up the first one. He wasn't suspicious:
  he just started talking to this "American" and found he couldn't speak a
  word of English.'
 'He was an illegal?'
  'You bet he was. It's neat, isn't it? With a U.S. passport he doesn't need
  a U. S. visa or a letter of invitation or any of the papers to authorize
  the export of jewellery, currency or other valuables. He's an American
  tourist, going home. You can see the beauty of it, can't you?'
 'Yes, I can,' said Pauli.
  'Well, Steiner here has busted them. He's found the printshop. A printer
  named Geschke - not even a Jew - in Dietrich-Eckart-Strasse, near the
  Wittenau station. They're there now, working away: we've got

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 men outside. This will be a big bust, Pauli. Steiner here might get a
 promotion.'
 'Congratulations, Steiner. How did you do it?'
 'I have an inside man: a Jew, of course.'
 'That's probably the only way,' said Pauli.
  'It is with this crowd,' said Steiner. Steiner had a thin, chirruping voice
  that was unexpected from such a big-framed fellow. 'They're very cautious,
  and very skilled.' He offered Pauli a passport and other papers.
 'This is one of their forgeries?'
 'It is.'
  'Take a look,' Koch told him, and Pauli moved his briefcase in order to
  spread the papers across his desk, under the light of the green -shaded
  lamp. There was the forged blank U.S. passport, a sheet of clear
  rubber-stamp marks photographed on line film, and photos of a genuine
  passport, page by page.
 'What do you think?' Koch asked.
  Pauli glanced up at him. Koch's face was set in an inscrutable grimace: the
  sort of face he always pulled when telling one of his jokes. Now that Koch
  was nearer to the desk light, his face could be seen more clearly. How
  strange that, while his hair was growing greyer and greyer, his big
  eyebrows remained coal-black.
  Pauli looked down again. It was Lottie Winter staring at him from the
  photograph in the genuine passport. And there was her name: Charlotte Sarah
  Winter. Born 1902, Los Angeles, California. Pauli looked up. 'They are
  there now? At the printing shop in Tegel?'
  'Yes,' said Koch. 'The owner, Geschke, and his son, four other men, and
  this woman.' He indicated the photo of Lottie.
 'What has the woman to do with it?' Pauli asked Steiner.
  'She's one of them. Also, she tells the people who use the passports how to
  pretend they are American.'
 'How do you know that?' asked Pauli sharply.
 'My inside man,' said Steiner.
 'Your inside man, yes, of course.'
  'Steiner has a preventive-arrest order. He was on his way over there when
  I met him. I said you might want to talk to him.'
  'I don't want this done by preventive-arresi order,' said Pauli. 'This is
  too important for that. These people are enemies of the state. They must be
  arrested by the police. I'll talk to the Kripo desk right away.'
  'I don't think that's the way to do it,' said Steiner. His rank was
  nothing, but he spoke with the assurance of a lifetime of police work. 'If

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 the Kripo handle it, they'll take the credit. And it will have to go
 through the courts.'
 'What's wrong with that?' said Pauli.
  The merest trace of a smile passed over Steiner's big, round, inscrutable
  face. 'Nothing, except that my boys will have to type out all the reports
  and spend a lot of time in the courtroom giving evidence.'
  'This is an American citizen,' said Pauli. He tapped the forged passport.
  with his fingertips.
  'German resident,' said Steiner doggedly. 'She's not a tourist, she's a
  German resident. When a resident commits a crime, it doesn't matter what
  colour her passport is.'
  'Technically,' interjected Koch, 'technically, Detective Constable
  Steiner has the right to decide.'
  'And on February 26 this year,' said the stolid Steiner, 'SS-
  Gruppenfiffirer Heydrich issued an order that said that no future use was
  to The made of police arrest, "so as to avoid the necessity for
  subsequent examination by the courts of measures taken by the police"~'
  'Yes,I know,'said Pauli, who'd had too long with his law books to be
  outwitted by a mere detective. 'But the Interior Minister's decree of
  April 12, 1934, said that "preventive arrest shall not be used as a
  punishment for criminal offences". This is a serious criminal offence
  with a foreign national involved. You must use a proper warrant.'
  There was a long silence. They all knew that, although Pauli was
  theoretically correct, and although the Sipo came under the direct orders
  of Interior Minister Dr Wilhelm Frick, Frick's authority was flouted, his
  1934 decree ignored.
  Pauli stared at Steiner, and Steiner, like many before him, was alarmed
  to recognize in Pauli a man who was entirely devoid of the restrictions
  that fear usually imposes upon even the bravest of men. Steiner looked
  into Pauli's rold, colourless eyes and felt uneasy. Eventually Steiner
  said, 'Very well. I'll go down to the Kripo desk. Will they give me the
  warrant there, or do I have to go through all the business of getting an
  authorized signature?'
 'It's urgent,' said Pauli. 'I'll phone and arrange everything.'
 Steiner sighed, picked up the photos, and went out.
  'Will he do it my way?' Pauli asked Koch after the surly detective had
  departed.
 'He knew she was your sister-in-law. You realize that, don't you?'
 'Did he? Winter - it's a common enough name.'

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       'You know what these old cops are like'

  'Steiner's no fool. He's been on the Berlin force for over thirty years. He
  knows everything that happens round here.'
 'But he'll do it?'
  'Oh, he'll do it your way. I know Steiner well enough to be sure of that.
  He's not going to make an enemy up here on the executive level. But he'll
  mark it up as something you owe him. In due time he'll come to collect a
  favour or two. You know what these old cops are like.'
 'No,' said Pauli. 'What are they like?'
 'They are like you,' said Koch, and he laughed.

 Pauli Winter phoned Inge to say he was delayed and then went to see his
 brother. Breaking the news of Lottie's arrest was one of the most painful
 moments of his life. Peter seemed to think that Pauli could have done more.
 It was impossible to make Peter see that no one could have done more.
  When Peter opened the door to his brother, he was dressed in a blue silk
  dressing gown with a red scarf tied at his throat. He looked like a
  prosperous actor. Pauli found it surprising that someone could take so much
  trouble with his appearance when he was alone in the house, but Peter had
  always been like that.
 'Peter. I've got something to tell you.'
  Peter let him in, saying, 'I've been looking for the coffee. I can't find
  it anywhere, and Lottie is with Mama.'
 'She's not with Mama. It's Lottie I want to talk about.'
  'Then goodness knows where she's got to. I do wish she'd tell me what she's
  doing. The girl is not here, and the omelette I made turned out a terrible
  mess.' The radio was playing 'The Way You Look Tonight'.
 'Lottie has been arrested, Peter.'
  'Oh my God! Are you sure?' Peter turned away to compose himself. His hands
  were trembling as he switched off the music.
 'You aren't mixed up with it, are you?' asked Pauli.
  'What is she charged with?' Peter replied. He pushed his hands into the
  pockets of his dressing gown.
 'The charges are not drawn up yet.'
 'Is it something to do with passports?' said Peter.
 'You'd better sit down, Peter.' Peter had gone very pale.
  'I think I will.' He sat down and took a cigarette from a box on the table.
 'Yes, forging passports.' Pauli lit his brother's cigarette for him.
 'I must go to her.'

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 'They won't let you see her tonight. She's being questioned.'
 'I thought she was with Mama.'
  Pauli said nothing. He'd never seen his brother so upset, and it caused him
  pain.
 'Are you sure they won't let me see her tonight? Poor, darling Lottie.' 'At
 the remand prison? You know what they're like. Of course they won't.'
 'Not even if I am her defehce lawyer?'
 'Peter, be sensible.'
 'I can't think straight.'
  'Did you know she was doing this kind of thing?' But before Peter could
  answer, he held up a hand to silence him and added, 'No, I don't want to
  know the answer to that. Forget I asked.'
  'She'll think I've deserted her. Only last night I scolded her about the
  housekeeping accounts. It only I'd known what was going to happen.'
 'Pull yourself together, Peter, for God's sake!' said Pauli sharply.
 'You're right: I must. For Lottie's sake I must.'
  'I insisted that the Criminal Police arrest her, using a warrant from a law
  court. That means she'll get a fair trial, Peter. And she's being held in
  the remand prison. If they'd used a protective-custody order and taken her
  to a concentration camp, you'd probably never see her again.'
 'They'll give her life imprisonment,' said Peter.
  'We don't know what sentence she'll get; we both know how unpredictable the
  courts are. But we do know she'll serve her time in a proper, civilized
  prison,' said Pauli. He couldn't seem to make his brother understand how
  lucky she was.
 Who shall I get to handle her defence?'
 She's guilty, Peter. You do realize that, don't you?'
 Peter nodded.
 'There's no lawyer in the world who is going to get her released.'
 'She must have the best.'
  'I'll find someone. But not many lawvers want to defend "enemies of the
  state". It might be difficult.'
  'You mustn't get involved, Pauli. I realize your job makes it difficult for
  you.'
 'I like Lottic: I've always liked her.'
  Peter looked round at him. 'But you think that as a foreigner, and a Jew,
  she should have kept out of German politics?'
 'I didn't say that, Peter you said it.'
 'But that's what you think, isn't it?'
 'I don't know what I think.'

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       'You knotv what these old cops are like'

  'How can you work for those Nazis?' said Peter and then regretted it. He
  was just taking out his frustrated rage and misery on his younger brother.
  It was stupid and unfair.
  Pauli blinked but didn't respond to his brother's flash of anger. He said
  calmly, 'You must realize, Peter, that we are not restricting the
  emigration of Jews. The SI) has an office that does everything it can to
  encourage emigration. The problem is that no country wants them. The real
  reason these people were forging American passports was because they can't
  get entry permits on a German one.'
 'Does Inge know what's happened?'
 'No. I must be getting along.'
 :Thanks, Pauli.'
 Did you ever think about living abroad?'
 'Is that your advice, Pauli?'
 'I'm thinking of Helena ... schools and so on.'
 'I will have to see what happens to Lottie.'
  'If you went now it would probably be easy. But if and when Lottie is
  convicted, you might find it impossible to get permission to leave, even as
  a tourist.'
 'I can't think about such things at this time.'
  'This will make a difference in other ways, too, Peter. Be prepared for
  that.'
 :What exactly do you mean?'
  There will be publicity, and it won't be helpful. The company might have
  complaints from shaieholders. I've seen it all happen before. A thing like
  this makes a lot of ripples in the pool.'
 'I'll be ready.'
 'If I can help .
 :Thanks, Pauli. You already have.'
 And, Peter, you see Isaac Volkmann now and again, don't you?'
 'I'm one of his patients,' said Peter defensively.
 'I hear that he's looking for somewhere to Live.'
  'Yes, poor Isaac. Their landlord has thrown them out with only a month's
  notice.'
 'I wonder if he's ever thought of living in a lock-up shop?'
 :Why?'
  Shopowners don't have to register tenants with the police the way people
  have to with apartments and houses.'
 :Live in a shop? Like a fugitive. Is that really necessary?'
 No, it's precautionary. There will be more and more pressure

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 brought on Jews. Life might become intolerable for thern.'
  'Is this an instruction?' said Peter, carefully choosing his words, 'or
  just information?'
 'It's advice,' said Pauli unhesitatingly.
 'I'll pass your message on.'
 'Better not say it's from me, Peter.'
 'I can't believe the Volkmanns will go to live in a shop.'
 'You never know,' said Pauli.
 'Lottie is so headstrong,' said Peter. 'She wouldn't listen to me.'

 When Pauli finally got home he was exhausted. He let himself into the
 apartment and entered the drawing room. The room was dark except for a pool
 of light on the sofa, where Inge was lounging. Next to her sat Fritz Esser,
 his jacket offand necktie loosened. They were laughing: laughing in a way
 he'd never heard either of them laugh before. When they looked up to see him
 the laughter stopped, and their faces were frozen in a circle of yellow
 light from the parchment-shaded table lamps. He felt like a stranger, an
 intruder almost.
  'Pauli darting,' said Inge. She got up hurriedly and smoothed her skirt.
  'We heard about Lottie.'
 'I've been with Peter,' explained Pauli.
 'Have you eaten?'
  'I don't want anything.' All he needed was a stiff drink. There was an
  assortment of drinks on a side table, but Pauli hesitated. He'd been
  drinking far too much lately. It would be better to have coffee.
 'How is Peter taking it?' Inge asked.
 'It's a shock for him.'
  'It's a shock for all of us,'said Fritz Esser. He got up unsteadily. He'd
  been drinking.
 'Did you want me, Fritz?' Pauli asked.
 'Fritz came to ask if he could help in any way,' said Inge.
  'That was very kind of you, Fritz,' said Pauli. He looked at the brandy
  decanter and decided to have a proper drink. After a day like this one, a
  man was entitled to get a little drunk.

 332
           1938
         'Being innocent is no defence'

 Riding across the snow-covered German countryside on a good horse was one of
 life's finest pleasures. It was white everywhere, with not a human
 habitation in sight. Sometimes it was hard to believe such open country
 existed so near to the heart of Berlin.
  Despite the loose zipper jacket he wore and his red silk scarf, a careful
  observer would have recognized the horseman's riding breeches and high
  boots as belonging to an officer's uniform. He always came here in uniform
  straight from church. It was a part of his long-established routine.
  Colonel Alex Homer had spent too long in the War Office. The introdaction
  of compulsory military service had expanded the German army to almost
  unmanageable size, and the paperwork was overwhelming. The Bendlerblock had
  become a madhouse. Some of his fellow desk-bound officers - especially the
  older ones - liked being at the centre of things, delighted in the petty
  departmental squabbling, and enjoyed the sophisticated pleasures of life in
  the capital. But such desk work was too tiresome for any fit young officer,
  and too constricting for the energetic and ambitious Homer.
  To make it worse, the civil war in Spain had been going on for over a year,
  and the German army had been using this foreign battlefield to test its
  men, its commanders, its tactics and its equipment. Now, when he seemed to
  have arranged a posting there, Horner's wife, Chrisi, had announced that
  she was pregnant. It would make no difference to his determination to go -
  that his career came first had been agreed at the time of their marriage -
  but she had no relatives in Berlin, and it seemed unkind to leave her.
  He was thinking of these things while riding Pola, a wonderful chestnut
  roan, back to the Bemau stables near Berlin. He relished these
  Sunday-moraing outings. He loved his wife, but he also cherished the
  opportunity to be alone now and again. And these

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 Sunday-morning rides were the only chance he got to withdraw from his
 demanding daily We.
  The stables were run by ex-Sergeant Major Winkel, a comrade from the war.
  It was funny to think that Winkel had come back to Berlin suffering so
  badly from British chlorine gas that the doctors had almost given him up
  for dead. Six motiths, they'd said, or maybe a year, providing he got out
  of the filthy Braunkohle fumes that Berlin's factories and power stations
  spread over the city Re a brown blanket.
  So Winkel took his hundred-per-cent-disability pension, such as it was,
  and a pretty young farmer's daughter, and the two goodtempered horses
  that came as her dowry, and set up his riding stables out here in what
  had then been open countryside. And now, twenty years after the war
  ended, Winkel was looking as well as ever he looked, and raking in the
  cash from officers like Horner who wanted a decent horse, rather than the
  mounts the army provided for such exercise.
  It was January and the air was cold. He'd given the horse a good chase,
  and now, for the final kilometre, he let her walk to cool off. She knew
  the way home even better than he did. It was a chance for Alex to think
  his own thoughts about Spain, changing tactics, Germany's Condor Legion
  and his contemporaries who were building reputations there. Soon - too
  soon - the white-painted gates of the stables came into sight, and
  another Sunday-morning excursion was ended.
  He let the horse find her own pace as her feet encountered the uncertain
  surface of the cobbles. The experts said horses liked cobbles, but Pola
  seemed to be an exception. As he rode into the yard, he saw Winkel and
  his teenage son trying to find the leak in a bicycle tyre by holding it
  in a tin bath of water.
  'Leave her to me, Winkel,' said Horner, waving away assistance. Winkel
  always made sure that Horner had his favourite, Pola, and Homer liked to
  look after her. He liked the stables, the smells of sweat and dung and
  old harness. He liked to see ex-Sergeant Major Winkel, too. Winkel's
  comfortable existence confirmed for Alex Homer that the army looked after
  its own. Bernau was outside the city limits of Gross-Berlin, half an hour
  on the train from Stettiner station, and yet enough officers came here
  to make sure that Winkel flourished.
 Now that his father was dead, and his elder brother - who'd

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 inherited the estate in East Prussia - wrote to him only once a year, it was
 this feeling about the close comradeship of the army that made life worth
 living for Alex Horner. Once, many years ago, during the terrible time when
 the army was being tom apart by Bolsheviks and revolutionaries, a fierce
 artillery colonel had asked him whether he would be prepared to die for his
 country. It was the sort of question only an old man who'd spent the war
 years at a divisional HQ twenty miles behind the fighting would put to a
 very young infantry subaltern who'd seen as much front-line service as
 Homer. Homer -a mere Leutnant at the time - had immediately given an answer
 in the affirmative, but a more truthful answer might have expressed his
 willingness to die for the army. He loved the army, and perhaps it was a
 significant reflection upon his relationship with his father that his
 proudest memory was of his father's words of praise after Alex graduated
 from Lichterfelde and went home wearing his regimental uniform.
  As he rode Pola into the dark stables, his eyes adjusting to the gloom, he
  didn't for a moment see the figure standing near the ladder that led up to
  the hayloft.
 'Hello, Alex.'
  It was a man of about his own age. A man wearing a grey felt hat and black
  leather overcoat with a grey knitted scarf wrapped around his neck in that
  careless style sometimes affected by students.
 'Pauli?'
  Pauli took the horse without answering, but now Alex Horner recognized his
  old friend.
  'How did you find me here, Pauli?' He swung down off the horse and they
  shook hands and exchanged greetings. Then Alex Horner turned back to his
  horse again. He released the girth and hauled the saddle off.
  Pauli took the saddle from him and hung it on the half-door. 'So Winkel's
  still got this place,' said Pauli. They'd both known SergeantMajor Winkel
  in the war. Long ago Pauli had ridden with Alex for a few Sunday-moming
  rides. But Inge felt neglected, so he stopped.
  Pauli took off his overcoat and hat, and started to help. He grabbed some
  straw and began rubbing the horse down. On the other side of the horse,
  Alex did the same. For a few minutes the men worked on in silence; then
  Alex, finding the silence discomfiting, said,'Let me guess what you've come
  to tell me. Have you come to give me the inside story on the downfall of
  our beloved War Minister?'

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  'That's another matter" said Pauli. 'Field Marshal von Blomberg is
  finished; no one can do anything to help him. He'll have to resign.'
  'Blomberg must have guessed she was a whore before marrying her, don't you
  think?'
  'I'm not an expert on women, or on the working of army officers'
  minds,'said Pauli.
  Alex gave a brief smile. 'But still ... he surely must have .'He waited.
  'Men don't usually check with the Identification Office of the Kripo before
  proposing marriage,' said Pauli.
  'Was it just bad luck that someone saw her antics on old porno photos and
  then recognized her in the marriage-group photo?'
  'There was no marriage photo, as far as I know. It was a very private
  ceremony.'
  'Very private,' said Alex sarcastically, 'with the Fdhrer and General
  G6ring as witnesses.' He paused and waited until Pauli sn-ffled at the
  notion of Gbring as a general. 'So how did the police find out?"
 'That change-of-address card,' said Pauli.
  'Well, Blomberg is big enough and old enough to look after himself,' said
  Alex. 'Let him resign. There are plenty of other men to fill his job. I
  don't want people pointing a finger at the War Minister and saying,
  "There's Generalfeldmarschall Werner von Blomberg, the old fool who married
  the whore." It makes the army look ridiculous.'
  'The Frau Generalfeldmarschall was never a whore, as far as police records
  go,' said Pauli patiently. 'She posed for pornographic photos.'
 'Then she must be a damned odd one,' said Alex.
  'After working for the Gestapo, you start realizing how many odd people
  there are about,' said Pauli.
  'I don't approve of this so-called tolerant society.' Alex threw down his
  handful of straw and moved away.
 'You're a stuffed shirt, Alex-, you always were,' said Pauli.
  'You say that about everyone. You used to say that about your brother.' His
  voice was raised as he went out through the door and into the locker room
  beyond.
 'I still do,' called Pauli.
  'Have a drink.' Alex Homer came back with his army tunic over his arm and
  a hip flask in his hand.
 'I've stopped drinking; I really have.'

                336
          'Being innocent is no defence'

  One schnapps won't hurt you. It would be better than all those cigarettes
  you smoke.' Alex carefully removed the silver cup from the flask and poured
  a measure into it. After offering it again to Pauli, he downed it in one
  gulp. This also was a part of Alex Horner's Sunday-morning routine.
 'Cigarettes don't spoil my judgement, Alex.'
  'Would the occasional spoiled judgement be so bad? You're not on the
  battlefield.'
  Oh, but I am, Alex.' Pauli watched Colonel Alex Horner put on his
  beautifully tailored tunic. Pauli felt a twinge of envy. But for one
  isolated piece of bad judgement, plus the spiteful officiousness of that
  swine Brand, Pauli might have been wearing the same colonel's uniform and
  been working alongside his friend. But Pauli didn't dwell upon it: he'd
  never wasted much time feeling sorry for himself. He'd grown up under the
  shadow of his academically brilliant brother. Considering his meagre
  assets, Pauli was satisfied with his good fortune. Still, Colonel Horner
  looked damned good, even if he did have to wear those ridiculous little
  swastika badges. Despite his own party affiliation, Pauli felt that von
  Blomberg should never have agreed to making the German army wear
  political-party insignia: it was undignified.
  'Won't you come home and have lunch with us? Chrisi is only cooking
  home-made soup and some bratwurst. There will be plenty.'
 'I have to get back to the office, Alex. Thank you.'
 'Chrisi is keen that you and Inge come to dinner.'
 'Next month things will be easier.'
  'It's Sunday! My goodness, you people work hard. The GeSLapo now, is it?'
  'I'm trying to keep my SD desk running, too. It's the devil of a lot of
  work.'
 'Then you'd better tell me your news.'
 'How close are you to von Fritsch?'
  'No one is close to von Fritsch,' said Alex without hesitation. Colonel
  General Werner I-reiherr von Fritsch, the Commander in Chief of the German
  army was a forbidding figure.
 'Is he a homosexual?'
 'No. Fritsch, a homosexual? It's out of the question.'
 'He's not married,' said Pauli.
 'Is this official?'
 'I'm trying to help.'
 'Well, Fritsch is not a homosexual; I'd bet anything on that. Now,

                337
         Nineteen hundred and thirty-eight

 what else can I tell you?' It was one of those rare moments when Alex Horner
 revealed a hint of displeasure.
  'It's not official, Alex. We're old friends. I wanted to talk with you.,
 'About the C in C?'
  'The railway police at Wannsee picked up some little piece of rubbish named
  Otto Schmidt. He was hanging around the station there. lie makes a living
  by blackmailing homosexuals. In the course of his interrogation he started
  name-dropping. One of the names was Fritsch.'
  Alex Horner showed both relief and exasperation. 'Good God, Pauli, you're
  surely not g9ing to take that seriously. He just wanted them to think he
  had influence. What other names did he drop?'
  'Lots of other names: the Potsdam Police President and the Minister of
  Economics.'
  'There you are.' Alex poured some more schnapps from the flask, then held
  it up, but Pauli shook his head to decline again. Alex drank. Usually on
  Sunday he limited himself to only one drink, but today was different.
  'Not quite,' said Pauli. 'The police pushed him along to the Gestapo desk
  that deals with the suppression of homosexuality. . . .'
  'Is there such a department?' He wiped his lips on the back of his hand.
  'We think of everything,' said Pauli sardonically. He watched Alex
  carefully -, Pauli had become an expert observer. In the next stall a
  restless horse put its weight against the wooden partition so that it
  creaked. 'And they showed him photos. He picked out the photo of the C in
  C.'
 'Hardly reliable evidence.'
  Still studying his friend's face, Pauli said, 'He is prepared to say he saw
  Fritsch committing a homosexual act with a youth he picked up at the
  Wannsee station.'
  'Oh,' said Alex, keeping his emotions under control. 'What will happen
  now?'
  'Quite a lot has happened already. A file on the case went to the Fiffirer.
  Reichsffthrer Humnler took it to him personally, so we kept the tightest
  security.'
 'And?'
 ,The Fiffirer said, "Burn this muck."
 'Good for the Fiffirer Was it burned?'
 'We don't burn anything.'

               338
          'Being innocent is no defence'

  Alex sighed. 'Oh, come along, Pauli, old friend. Some things get burned irk
  the Third Reich. Didn't I see big piles of books by Jewish authors being
  burned in Unter den Linden not so long ago? At Opernplatz; I stopped to
  watch. A big bonfire. I noticed quite a few books there I rather fancied.
  Freud, Gide, Proust, Zola, Wells, Zweig, Mann . . .'
 'I wish you'd trust me, Alex.'
 'What do you want me to do?'
  It was not easy to help people; Pauli had found that again and again. They
  all acted as though Pauli were talking to them in some incomprehensible
  foreign tongue. 'Warn Colonel General Fritsch.'
  'You expect me to walk into his office and tell him that Hitler suspects
  him of committing homosexual acts at the Wannsee station?'
  Alex still couldn't get it into his head. All these years in the army
  seemed to have made him incapable of understanding the simple facts of
  German political life. Pauli explained it as simply as he could. 'Now that
  it seems as if von Blomberg must go, G6ring will persuade Hinunler to bring
  up the Fritsch business again.'
 'But why?'
  'Don't be naive, Alex. G6ring wants Blomberg's ministry, and Fritsch is
  next in line right now. "War Minister G6ring": he'd love that.'
 'And how would Himmler benefit?'
  'If Fritsch went, the Reichsfiihrer-SS would also take the opportunity to
  extend his powers.'
  'Himmler, extend his powers? My God, the fellow has taken over all the
  police forces in Germany. And now he's expanded this SS army of his to
  three regiments, plus a combat-engineer company and a communications unit.'
  'Top marks to the Abwehr, Alex. They keep you well informed.' He took out
  a cigarette, ]it it, and blew smoke. 'And the concentration camps, too. The
  TotenkopfverWride who guard the camps are also part of his command.'
 'And you, too?'
 'Yes, me, too.'
 'Then why are you here?,
 'Don't you know that, 4.1ex?'
 Alex paused. 'The armv? Does it mean so much to you still?'
 'I don't know, Alex. Perhaps I simply want to prove I can be my

               339
         Nineteen hundred and thirV-eight

 own master sometimes. Inge keeps telling me I should be my own master.' He
 got up, took his overcoat off the hook.
  Alex watched his friend putting the heavy leather overcoat on. Pauli moved
  like an infirm old man. Goodness knows what he was doing these days, but he
  looked as if he was working too damned hard. Even the Bendlerblock let its
  inmates spend Sunday at home. 'You don't believe it, either, do you?'
  'About Fritsch? No, it's all nonsense. The man who paid blackmail money to
  this Schmidt filth is someone quite different; a retired Captain von
  Frisch.'
 'How did you find out?'
  'His address was in Schmidt's original statement. I went along to the
  address and spoke with him. After a little questioning he admitted it, and
  we got his bank statements to prove the payments.'
  'Then it will be all right,' said Alex. Pauli patted the horse and it
  nuzzled him affectionately. He loved horses; he always had.
 'No, it will not be all right. Someone had better tell Fritsch.'
 'Tell him what? He's innocent. You've just said so.'
  'Tell him that being innocent is no defence.' Pauli smiled, buttoned his
  coat, and decided to say no more about it. Already he'd said too much.
 Alex nodded and took. another drink. The world had gone mad.

          Case Otto

      On the evening of Frida * y, March i 1, 1938, the most splendid
      social
      event in Berlin was undoubtedly the lavish party given at the
      newly
      named and redecorated Haus der Flieger - the old Prussian Diet
      building on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse - by Hermann G6ring.
       G6ring himself, forty-five years old, Commander in Chief of the
       newly created Luftwaffe and in charge of all civil aviation, too,
       had recently been made a field marshal. The promotion was to
       compensate him for his disappointment at not taking over von
       Blomberg's job as war minister (Hitler had taken that authority
       forhimself). This night he arrived at his gala pink-faced and
       excited. He was wearing his new field marshal uniform, complete
       with an array of medals. At his neck there was the Orden Pour le
       Write, the nation's highest award for valour, which G6ring had
       won as a fighter pilot in the war. Short in stature, as so many
       fighter pilots are, and very overweight, G6ring this night was
       the essence of charm.

                     340
              Case Otto

  It was a sumptuous affair: more than a thousand guests, including
  diplomats and high-ranking officials, were entertained by the orchestra,
  singers and ballet of the Berlin State Opera. Among the many guest
  performances was a Beethoven piano sonata played by Erich Hennig.
  Ever since playing before the Fiffirer at the Bach Festival in Leipzig
  in June 1935, Erich Hennig had been a celebrity of the Third Reich. Once
  Hitler had admired him, he'd become noted as an interpreter of Bach as
  well as of Beethoven and Mozart, and Hennig was regularly to be heard on
  the radio. A handsome man, thin and rather drawn, with a carefully
  trimmed moustache and intense black eyes, Hennig had cultivated the
  appearance that audiences expected of a concert pianist. It was his
  appearance - and such mannerisms as flicking his coat tails and 'washing'
  his hands quickly before the piano's first entry - as much as his talent,
  that had earned him a regular place on the new entertainment medium,
  television. On March 22, 1935, Germany had started the first regular
  public TV broadcasting system in the world. Despite the small number of
  TV receivers in use, performers such as Erich Hennig were becoming famous
  'personalities'.
  And so, when Hennig took the stage that evening, this familiar figure was
  given a welcoming applause that outmatched that given to any other
  performer.
  'Erich would have got tickets for you,' Lisl Hennig told her sister Inge
  after showing her some snapshots of the Hennigs' eight-yearold son.
  'We were invited anyway,' said Inge haughtily. 'Pauli gets tickets for
  all the big events.'
  'How wonderful,' said Lisl as she put the photos back in her handbag.
  Inge sometimes liked to pretend she preferred the freedom of being
  childless, but her face, as she looked at Lisl's snapshots, made it
  obvious how much she wanted a baby. And Pauli - unlike Erich - was
  wonderful with children. 'Forgive me for the way I keep watching the
  stage, but Erich will probably be presented to Field Marshal G6ring, and
  he'll want me to be with him.'
 'How is Papa?' asked Inge to change the subject.
  'He misses Mama terribly. Though he hardly ever mentions her, he just
  isn't the same without her. It's easy to forget how old he is, but his
  memory is going. He has no sense of time. Last week I mentioned that I'd
  seen you buying fish in Ka-De-We and he said, "Is Inge going to marry
  that young Peter Winter? He's a polite young

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         Nineteen hundred and thirty-eight

 fellow." I replied, "She's married his brother." Papa said, "Oh, is that
 legal?" We laughed. We were eating dinner at the time. Erich laughed so much
 I thought he would choke. Yes, Papa says odd things at times.' Lisl
 chuckled.
  Inge didn't laugh. She said, 'Pauli couldn't come. Pauli's packing to go to
  Vienna.' She shouldn't have said it, really - Pauli had sworn her to
  secrecy - but she'd suffered enough of her sister's tormenting.
 'Vienna? So the Anschluss is happening?'
  'At dawn tomorrow, our troops cross the border. Please God the Austrians
  won't start shooting.'
  'Start shooting? You can't be serious, Inge. The Austrians will love to
  become a part of the Reich.' She looked at Inge. 'Why is Pauli going
  there?'
  'He's taking into custody the dissidents, the Marxists and troublemakers.
  A lot of German criminals have gone there to hide.'
 'And Jews,' said Lisl.
  'Yes. The Gestapo have nearly a hundred thousand names with Vienna
  addresses,' said Inge.
 'So Pauli will be there for a long time.'
  'No, thank goodness. The SS-Reichsfiihrer has promised that Vienna will be
  safe for the Fiffirer to visit by Tuesday. I couldn't bear to have Pauli
  away for a week. I miss him dreadfully, and he needs me, Lisl. Without me
  the poor darli,ig doesn't even remember to change his linen, and he never
  eats properly when he's away from home.'
  At ten-thirty that evening, those favoured musicians and members of the
  corps de ballet and corps diplornatique who'd been alerted to the prospect
  of shaking hands with Field Marshal G6ring were told that plans for these
  formal presentations had been cancelled.
  Although no reason was given, it was because G6ring - who'd taken a major
  role in the planning for the annexation of Austria - was closeted with one
  of his guests. G6ring was determined to persuade Dr Mastny, the
  Czechoslovak ambassador, that Germany's aggression boded no such similar
  fate for his country. This was just a 'family matter', said G6ring - the
  Austrians were in fact Germans -and Germany was determined to have
  excellent relations with Czechoslovakia. He hoped that there would be no
  question of Czechoslovakia's mobilizing against this entirely German
  affair.
 Dr Mastny was not entirely convinced.
  'It's a lovely dress, Inge,' Lisl told her, and there was no doubt of her
  sincerity. It was a floor-length dress of grey shot-silk that

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              Case Otto

 shimmered in the light of the chandeliers. The bodice was buttoned high to
 the neck in a style based deliberately upon some of the old German country
 costumes. It was a 'model dress' exclusive to her. Inge had chosen it from
 one of the expensive couturiers in Kudamm. She had in mind taking it with
 her when they next went to the Obersalzberg. She knew it was the sort of
 dress the Fiffirer would approve of. 'It must have cost a fortune.'
  'Well, I told Pauli that now he's an important man in the administration,
  I have to dress accordingly.'
  'You're lucky,' said Lisl. 'Erich is awfully mean about my clothes.'
  'You must speak with him,' said Inge. 'You entertain all sorts of
  interesting artists. And if you are going to come to events like this,
  where there are lots of foreigners, it's important that you look your best.
  Germans must show them that we have a new place in the world.'
  'That's all right for Pauh,' said Lisl, 'but you'd never get away with that
  with Erich. If I said I had nothing suitable to wear, Erich would just
  leave me behind.'

 Colonel Alex Homer first heard officially on Thursday, March to. It all
 started just before 9:oo a.m., when General Wilhelm Keitel arrived. Although
 Keitel was officially styled the chief of the Armed Forces Command (the OKW,
 an office that Hitler created to replace von Blomberg's War Ministry),
 everyone knew that Keitel was no more than Hitler's office boy.
  But, as Alex Homer noted, 'Hitler's office boy' could certainly make the
  Bendlerblock come alive. When Hitler had got rid of Fritsch and Blomberg,
  he'd ruthlessly purged the generals: there had been fifty transfers and
  forced retirements. Now, when Keitel came through the door unexpected, the
  anxiety could be smelled in every corridor.
  The Austrians were planning a plebiscite on Sunday as a way to appeal to
  world opinion and so counter the German ultimatum. The Ffihrer had decided
  that, to prevent it, the army must occupy Austria by Saturday. It was
  already mid-moming Thursday. Colonel Homer'simmediate superior - an elegant
  and cultured old general whom Homer had come to distrust if not despise -
  sent for him urgently.
 'Anything on Austria, Colonel Homer?'
 'Nothing in the way of military plans, Herr General.'

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         Nineteen hundred and thirV--ight

  'No contingency plans against the Austrians? Nothing at all?' He was trying
  to maintaiii his usual supercilious, patronizing manner, but to Homer he
  sounded harassed.
 'Nothing, Herr General.'
 'Come along, Homer. General Jodi says there is something.'
 'Did he say what it was, Herr General?'
  'I gather it is a rather impractical scheme that was prepared when there
  were rumours that the Austrians were planning to restore Otto of Hapsburg
  to the throne.'
 'I don't remember it, Herr General,' said Homer.
  'He thinks it's called Case Otto. Perhaps it's filed downstairs in one of
  the storerooms. Get some reliable officers to go through the filing
  cabinets downstairs.'
 'Immediately, Herr General.'
  'And Colonel Homer. I've decided to deny that application for you to go to
  Spain.'
 'As the General wishes.'
  'Oh, I know you must be disappointed, but with your wife pregnant with a
  first child, and the High C ommand's decision to cut back on the forces in
  Spain . . .'
  'I understand, Herr General.' His General was not the sort of man who
  considered the feelings of pregnant wives, he simply had another protdg6
  lined up for the Spanish posting.
  'What would you say to a weekend in Vienna instead? It looks as if the army
  is heading that way.'
 'Vienna, Herr General?'
  'Type yourself some orders for attachment to one of the units in the order
  of battle. I'd choose one of these Panzer outfits, unless you relish some
  hard marching.'
 'The Herr General is very kind.'
  'Lots of time for Spain, Horner. That young General Franco is not going to
  beat the Reds for a long time yet, judging by the way the Russians are
  putting material into the fighting.'
 'Yes, Herr General.'
  'You don't want to go to Spain, Colonel Horner. It's fuil of flies and
  beggars. The food's terrible, too: olive oil and rice with odds and ends in
  it. Go to Vienna: better food, decent music and far more beautiful women.'
  'I'll get started on the search for the plans for Case Otto, Herr General.'

                344
              Case Otto

  'Don't break your heart on it, Colonel. If those plans were here, I would
  have seen them; and I don't remember them.'
 'I thought General Jodl . . .'
  'General jodl is getting old, Colonel. You go and dust off your dancing
  pumps. Send a couple of of.-icers downstairs, then go and prepare your
  orders, and get me to sign them while I'm still in a good mood. 1
 'Yes, Herr General. Thank you.'
  Meanwhile, Keitel had left the building to hurry across to the
  Reichskanzlei for his ten o'clock meeting with the Fiffirer and was
  relieved to hear that Hitler would be satisfied with Case Otto. But when
  he returned to the Bendlerstrasse, no one had found it, and despite more
  searching the plans were never located.
  'It's a typical Bendlerstrasse balls-up,' Alex Horner told the two young
  officers who'd emerged from the storerooms with hands and faces blackened
  with the dirt and dust of filth-encrusted bundles of old documents.
  Keitel went into immediate conference with General Beck, Chief of the
  General Staff. When Beck was summoned to see the Fiffirer, he had the
  luck to grab General Erich von Manstein - the army's most capable general
  - to go with him.
  Manstein was supposed to be on his way out of Bendlerstrasse where, until
  Hitler's purge, he'd been deputy chief of the General Staff. By now he
  should have been on the train to Liegnitz, to the humiliatingly low job
  of commanding the i 8th Infantry Division.
  It took Manstein five hours to draft the plans, which, to conceal the
  fact that the original was lost, were called 'Case Otto'. By 6:30 p.m.
  orders were on the teleprinters to mobilize three army corps and the
  necessary air-force units.
  Alex Horner found an excuse to go into the room where the fabled General
  Manstein was at work. He was a ferocious-looking man with grey hair,
  bushy eyebrows, and a big beak of a nose. But Manstein's ferocity was not
  selectively targeted. Everyone remembered that it was the lonely voice
  of Manstein who'd objected to the order that in 1934 had dismissed Jews
  from the army. And Manstein was not afraid to put his objection in
  writing and send it to the High Command. He protested the meting out of
  such treatment to men who'd proved, by voluntary enlistment, that they
  were ready to give their lives for Germany - and added that the army had
  shown cowardice in surrendering to the Nazi Party on such an issue.
  Manstein's courageous protest had alarmed those generals who were

                345
         Nineteen hundred and thirtyeight

 frightened to rock the boat. War Minister Blomberg was furious and ordered
 General Werner von Fritsch (the army C in C) to take disciplinary action
 against Manstein, but the stalwart Fritsch said it was none of the War
 Minister's business.
  Now Blomberg had gone, and Fritsch had gone, too, and Manstein was
  perfecting Hitler's plans for the invasion of Austria.

              TOP SECRET
  If other measures prove unsuccessful I intend to invade Austria
 with armed forces to establish constitutional conditions and to
 prevent further outrages against the pro-German population.

  The forces of the army and air force detailed for this operation must
 be ready for invasion on March 12, 1938, at the latest by 1200
 hours.

 It all seemed a long time ago, thought Colonel Alex Horner as he sat by
 the roadside perched upon the hull of a broken-down tank.
  Alongside him sat his old friend Captain von Kleindorf wearing the black
  uniform of the tank men. 'They're not tanks at all,' complained von
  Kleindorf, thumping the thin steel of the PzKw IA with his fist. 'Five
  metres long, and armed with nothing better than a couple of machine guns
  The damned thing only weighs six tons! Look at it.'
  Alex didn't want to look at it: he hated it and all the other miserable
  little steel boxes like it. 'So why have we got them?'
  'Ask your friends in the Bendlerblock,' said von Kleindorf. 'For parades
  past the newsreel cameras, I suppose. We've got fifteen hundred of these
  useless little two-man machines, and hundreds of them still have the
  rotten little four-cylinder Krupp engine, like this one.'
  'I know,'said Alex. He didn't exactly know, but he'd seen so many of them
  broken down oil the roadsides of South Germany that the figure didn't
  surprise him.
  A company of infantry marched past. They'd been getting ready to jeer and
  catcall the men on the broken tank but, recognizing the uniforms of the
  two officers, the sergeant called the marching men to attention.
  'And the damned S S soldiers are all in trucks,' said von Kleindorf
  bitterly. 'And they're wearing proper field-grey army uniforms!'
  'Guderian shouldn't have agreed to have SS units with us in the corps,'
  said Alex.

                346
              Case Otto

  'What option did he have?' said von Kleindorf. 'The tanks need motorized
  infantry in support, and Himmler seems to know where to get his hands on
  trucks. Our poor devils have to march.' It wasn't exactly true - most of
  the infantry units passing them were using horse-drawn vehicles - but
  Aiex had been up all night, he was tired, and he was riot in the mood lor
  arguing.
  'You two officers! Quicklv!' Two large open-top staff cars had stopped.
  The second one had hit a mud patch and almost skidded into the other.
  Staff officers leapt out in the way that staff officers do when they want
  to impress their commander.
 'He wants us,' said von Kleindorf.
 'JaP shouted Alex Horner, and jumped to the ground.
 'Come here!'
  They ran to him. He was a Generalleumant, his overcoat collar open to
  reveal the huge crimson lapels that are the insignia of the rank of
  general. He stood up in the open Mercedes with one arm resting along the
  top of the windscreen and the other hand impatientlyshaking a pair of
  expensive kid gloves. His face, like his uniform, bore splashes of mud.
  Magisterially the general ~iaid, 'A colonel authorized tank commanders
  to break the locks on civilian gas pumps and steal petrol from service
  stations. A colonel with a helmet painted dark green, I was told. Was it
  one of you iwo officers?'
  Alex Horner's helmet was painted dark green, as it had been for autumn
  manoeuvres last year. All around him the soldiers of the corps had their
  helmets the same shade of brownish grey. 'Yes, Herr General,' said Alex,
  'I authorized it.'
 'From civilian gas pumps?'
 :There is no fuel convoy, Herr General.'
 That's theft!'
 'Yes, Herr General.'
 'Your name?'
 'Colonel Horner, Herr General.'
 'Who is your commander")'
  'I am attached from Berlin, Herr General, OKW Operations Office.'
  'Oh, you're a tourist, Colonel? just here to try the schnitzels, I
  suppose. Well, you confine your damned criminal activities to the
  Bendlerblock. Perhaps that's the way they do things there. But meanwhile,
  when a court of inquiry starts asking for compensation

                347
         Nineteen hundred and thirty-eight

 for those civilians, I'll make sure it's your head that's on the block. Is
 that clear, Colonel Horner?'
  'Yes, Herr General.' Behind this truculent general, one of his aides stood
  smirking at Alex's discomfort.
 'What are you waiting here for?'
  'The maintenance section. A track has broken and we've no spare links, Herr
  General.'
  'They won't need you to help them fix it. Get into my car, I'll take you up
  to Divisional HQ if we can find them. Have you got any kit?'
 'No, Herr General I
  'Go, driver!' Even before the doors slammed, the general's driver had let
  in the clutch and the car roared away. In the mirror Alex glimpsed the
  second car chasing after them.
  'And your name, Captain?' shouted the general as the car bumped and skidded
  along the narrow road.
 'Captain von Kleindorf, Herr General.'
  'Kleindorf? Is General von Kleindorf your father? We were together in 19j8.
  Is he well?'
 'Yes, Herr General.'
 'You give him my respects next time you write.'
 'Yes, Herr General.'
  'Look at these damned fools. Stop, driverP The car skidded to a halt, and
  again the one behind narrowly avoided a collision. 'Where's your commander,
  Sergeant? Get him immediately. Why are you stopped? Out of fuel? Good God,
  man, why don't you get fuel as you go? Get motor spirit from one of these
  civilian service stations. If they won't let you have it on signature, take
  it at gun-point. Do you understand? Good. GG, driverP and the car leapt
  forward again.
  'Stop, driver! Come here, Sergeant. Don't you know that all vehicles must
  be garlanded with flowers or flags or, failing that, leaves? Haven't you
  been told that all units are to have a joyful appearance? Get greenery and
  have it done right away. Smile, Sergeant. You heard me, smile! That's
  right. Now, you keep that smile on your face until you're in Vienna. We
  want those damned dumpling-eaters to celebrate our arrival. It's better
  than fighting them. Carry on, Sergeant. Go, driver!'
  L was the same all along the road, with the general chivvying his columns
  into action. But many of the breakdowns had mechanical causes too grave to
  be got moving by the general's sharp tongue. This day Alex Homer saw broken
  tanks and trucks all along the road to Vienna.

                348
              Case Otto

  'And who is that civilian, Captain? An Austrian mechanic fixing your
  truck? Why can't you fix it yourself? You're a damned disgrace to your
  uniform, Captain. No, don't stop him. If your fool of a driver can't mend
  it, then let the Austrian do it. But don't count on that kind of hell)
  from the Polacks when we invade Poland, Captain.'
 :Poland, Gencral?'
  Don't look sc worried, Captain, It's just a joke. At least it's just a
  joke until the Fuhrer decidt-s it isn't a joke. Go, driver!'
  With hishead lolling back against the leather seat the genet al put a
  question to his passenger. 'So what do you think of our big new army of
  conscripts, now that you've seen them in action, Colonel Homer?'
 :There are problems, Heir General.'
  Sol Even a man from the Bendlerblock can see it! That~s reassuring
  anyway. Yes, there are problems, colonel. From what I can see, about
  fifty per cent of our motorized and armoured force has suffered
  breakdowns. The machinery is second-rate, the maintenance is poor, and
  the army have had to promote competent private soldiers to be incompetent
  NCOs, and competent young subalterns to be incompetent captains. nat's
  what conscription has done to the army. Theaverage young officer hasn't
  got enough initiative to blow his own nose.'
 :The general is perhaps too critical,' v~nitured Alex bravely.
  Rubbish! Look for yourself. Did you see that sergeant back there? He
  couldn't have been much more than nineteen years old, and he's in charge
  of thirty men. What can a boy like that know about commanding soldiers?'
 'He might have served in Hitler Youth, H(rr General,' sa-d Alex.
  'Don't talk to me about Hitler Youth,' said the general. 'I'm always
  getting complaints about thc way the little swines report chance remarks
  by their NCOs, and their officers too. I stamp on that! I'll tell. you
  - and I don't care if you'ie a Nazi or not- I stamp on it. I won't have
  these little frcshly recruited bastards snooping on mv trained men.'
 'Of course not, Herr General.'
 'Nor will I give the conceited little Nazi tykes quick promotions.'
 'No, Herr General.'
  'Ah! You agree, Horner So! Is that the official attitudc of the
  Bendlerblo,ck? Can I take that as being the official reaction of the
  OKW?'
  'No, Herr General. I have no ide2 what is the official attitude to such
  matters.'

               349
         Nineteen hundred and thirty-eight

  'Neither do 1, Homer. That's my dilemma, you see. You might say that's the
  army's dilemma. We wear these pretty little silver Nazi eagles and
  swastikas on our chests, and we are not our own men any more. Follow me,
  Horner?'
 'Yes, Herr General. I follow you.'

       'Don't work too hard, Pauli Winter'

 Damned German tourists: they were everywhere. They must have followed within
 hours of the soldiers crossing the border. Or perhaps the shrewder ones had
 contrived to be in Vienna already. Here they were: eating, eating, eating,
 as if they were starved. It's true, the food was better than in the Reich,
 but only marginally so. Of course, the rate ofexchange was good so the
 Reichsmark bought more. Even so, Pauli Winter disapproved of the way that
 the restaurants and shops were crowded with Germans. It was undignified and
 uncomfortably like the profiteers in Berlin in those awful days of igig.
  Nor did he like the way that so many of the German businessmen he knew
  wanted him to help them buy out Jewish businesses at knockdown prices. He'd
  upset some of them with his unequivocal refusals. He'd sent them packing
  with a few home truths ringing in their eqrs. He smiled to himself as he
  thought about it. No doubt those outbursts had made for him a few bitter
  enemies, but he was confident that they'd do nothing about it. That was one
  consolation about this rather dull job of his: no sane man wanted to get on
  the wrong side of a senior executive of the Gestapo.
  Pauli Winter was enjoying this visit to the city of his birth. He
  remembered it well enough, even though he'd not been here for nearly five
  years. Past the Opera to the Ringstrasse. A bearded gypsy violinist was
  standing on the corner playing a sad melody. He should have been arrested
  as a vagrant, but Pauli put some coins into the tin. Though it was a chilly
  day, the sun was bright and there was a feeling of excitement in the air.
  Pauli's enjoyment was somewhat marred by the sight of elderly Jews on their
  knees scrubbing the pavement, supervised by uniformed Austrian Nazis, while
  passers-by stopped to look and sometimes jeer.
  The Jews were mostly harmless. They chose university professors and
  professional men to set to scrubbing the streets and cleaning out public
  toilets, because their respectable appearance made them look more
  ridiculous. Pauli knew they were harmless: anyone with a

               350
        'Don't work too hard, Pauli Winter'

 record of even the mildest anti-Nazi word or action had been rounded up and
 put under lock and key within hours of Pauli's arrival.
  Soon, when the new concentration camp at Mauthausen - on the Danube near
  Enns - was ready it would all be much easier. There would not be the long
  train journeys to take prisoners to camps in Germany. Furthermore, the
  prisoners would be able to work in the Mauthausen stone quarry. That could
  be said to be Pauli Winter's idea. It was Pauli's long analysis of the
  concentration-camp accounts that had ended with a suggestion that all the
  camps eventually become self-financing. In an appendix at the end he'd
  listed the sort of labour-intensive enterprises that the SS should obtain
  - perhaps by confiscation from Jewish owners - with a view to using free
  concentration-camp labour for increased profit. Quarries, any sort of
  quarries, and such firms as the Meissen porcelain works were especially
  desirable. The SS-Reichsfiihrer had sent a letter of interest and
  appreciation, and Heydrich had suggested that Pauli resign his Gestapo post
  and work only for his Sicherheitsdienst. It was a great compliment, but
  Pauli had politely declined, pointing out that his job with the Gestapo (a
  state organization) carried the full state pension rights that were granted
  to such public employees, whereas the SD (a Nazi Party organization) had no
  such guaranteed longterm benefits. This was particularly unfair now that
  the concentrationcamp guards - unemployable riffraff for the most part -
  were officially recognized as civil servants, with all the rights and
  privileges of that elite fraternity.
  For Pauli the operation in Vienna had all gone smoothly. By this afternoon
  the men would have finished moving all the confiscated silver, paintings,
  furniture and carpets from the Rothschilds' palace in Prinz-Eugen-Strasse
  so that the building could be used as offices for the Sipo and SD. Pauli
  wondered what would happen to all those priceless things he'd watched the
  SS men loading onto trucks. judging by the care they'd taken, the antiques
  were already earmarked for some Nazi Party leader. Even more valuable
  plunder was going to Germans who knew the right people. The German company
  I. G. Farben was to be given Skodawerke Wetzler AG chemical work in
  exchange for a promise to replace all Jews in the management and bring this
  huge gunpowder works into the Nazi four-year plan. Rothschild's steel
  rolling mills in Czechoslovakia had been promised to Field Marshal G6ring.
  That would be the price for Baron de Rothschild's freedom.

                351
         Nineteen hundred and thirty-eight

  Now he had to stop and ask the way. KArntnerstrasse. He knew it was near
  the boulevard, but it was a long time since he'd been in this part of the
  city. The woman who directed him there had a strong Viennese accent. She
  asked him if he was a German. 'We are all Germans now,' Pauli replied.
 'On the left,' said the woman, 'just fifty metres along the street.'
  He went up to the fourth floor. The name tab on the bell had been peeled
  away. From the apartment upstairs he could hear American dance music
  -'Thanks for the Memory'. He pressed the bell, and after a long delay the
  door was opened by a youngish man in plain tie, white shirt and the sort
  of hard-wearing dark serge suit that employers furnish to domestic
  servants.
 'Yes?'
  'My name is Winter,' said Pauli with careful politeness. He gave the man
  his visiting card. It bore only his name - Dr.iur. Paul Winter -- and his
  private Berlin address and phone number. His employer -the Gestapo - and
  office address were discreetly omitted.
 'Please wait,' said the man.
  'Forgive me,' said the woman who eventually emerged from behind the bead
  curtain at the end of the hall. In her middle fifties, she was very
  small, slim and still beautiful, even if she wore a little too much rouge
  and lipstick. Her hair was lustrous but it was too dark and too wavy and
  too tight against her head. She wore a wonderful old silk negligee
  patterned with fierce Chinese tigers. 'I teh Boris he must always look
  through the peephole before ans,wering the door.' She'd never shed the
  Hungarian accent-, for someit is difficult.
 'That's sensible,'said Pauli.
  'Come into the drawing room,' she said. She looked down at Pauli's card
  and fingered the name on it as if it were Braille. 'We will have tea and
  we will talk.' Then she looked at Pauli, trying to see his father in him.
  Pauli was half prepared for the room. Once his father, in some
  uncharacteristic moment of revelation, had confided something of the
  wonderful things he'd bought when young. But he did not think it would
  be like this. 'It's magnificent!'
  It was a museum, but far better than any museum could ever be: for this
  perfect example of Viennese Art Nouveau, complete with two small Klimt
  murals, some exquisite Schiele drawings, and Josef Hoffmann furniture,
  had never had to endure the ceaseless burden of uninvited visitors.

                352
        'Don't work too hard, Pauli Winter'

  Soon Boris appeared with a silver tray and tea things. Pauli got a better
  look at him this time. Thirty-five, maybe younger. Dark hair. Not
  particularly handsome oi attractive in any way. A boring sort of fellow. If
  he was her lover thcre was no sign of it. And yet there was no sign of
  anything. She hardly looked at the man. Was that because she was frightened
  of revealing their true relationship? Or had he worked for her so long that
  she no longer noticed his existence.
  'With lemon?' Martha Som16 fitted into the scheme perfectly. She sat in her
  favourite chair and poured tea, impaled slices of lemon on a silver fork
  and carefully positioned perfectly shaped pieces of cake upon the Art
  Nouveau plates.
 'Yes, lemon.'
  'Harry - your father - loved it, of course. Back in the old days we had
  dinner parties. Artists came. I met them all. The dining room is the finest
  example anywhere, Harry says. Mind you, people said he was crazy when he
  bought all this stuff. Me, too. I didn't tell him, but I hated it at first.
  But after nearly forty years ... Did he send you? Did Harry send you?'
 'He was worried.'
 'About me? That's a surprise.' She said it without rancour.
 'Does he still come?'
  'To see me? Sure. But not often. I love him, you see. Sometimes I even
  think that he loves me.'
  Pauli picked up his tea and i ook his time squeezing lemon into it to avoid
  having to reply.
 'Does that offend you, Herr Pauli Winter?'
  So she knew he was called Pauli. He wondered how much his father had told
  her about hint. A lot, perhaps. He wondered if his father knew about the
  presence of the man servant. 'No, it doesn't. Of course not. Not at all.'
 'Did you ever see me before?'
 'No, I don't think so.'
  'I just wondered. You see, long ago, the year before you were born, your
  mother used to come and stand out there on the boulevard, looking up at the
  % indow. She was pregnant, I suppose. I felt sorry for her. I think she
  wanted to see what I looked like. One day I went down and crossed the road
  and passed near her. I looked at her and she looked at me. I didn't see any
  hatred there. I suppose we both pitied each other in that insane way in
  which women are able to convince themselves that they have the best part of
  any deal. She never came again after that.' She picked up her tea and
  stirred it and

                353
         Nineteen hundred and thirty-eight

 then let the tea leaves settle in the bottom of the cup. She looked down
 into the tea before drinking it. Pauli wondered if she was trying to read
 her fortune there.
 'I work for the German police,' said Pauli tentatively.
  'Well, you'll be kept busy,' said Martha. She looked up at him evenly.
  There was no fear in her face, although Pauli knew somehow that she was
  frightened. He'd seen too many frightened people not to be able to
  recognize fear in all its guises.
  'My father asked me to give you my protection. I promised him that I
  would.'
 'What do you do for the German police that you can protect me?'
  'I am a Regierungsdirektor working in the Gestapo. I also hold
  SS-Standartenffihrer rank for my work with the SD.'
 'What a mouthful. It sounds very important.'
  He was being mocked, but he didn't mind that. He found her attractive, this
  little woman with her large eyes that challenged him and tried to see
  inside him. Until now he'd not realized that his father needed a woman like
  this, a strong, challenging personality who let you know she would fight
  back. And yet her assumed fearlessness was curiously disconcerting. 'I
  might be useful, Frau Soml6.'
 'I call myself Frau Winter.'
  'Frau Winter. Good. Yes, that is clear. It might be possible to find
  completely new papers for you.'
 'You are going to convert me from being a Jew?'
 'I will try. Do you see any difficulty?'
 'Difficulty?'
  'Yes,' said Pauli. My God, but people could be stupid when it came to the
  important things in life. 'Are you registered or listed anywhere as a Jew?
  Do you go to the synagogue? Jewish societies? Do your neighbours know you
  as a Jew?'
  'Synagogue: no. Societies: never. Neighbours ... The Bergers upstairs know.
  We talked about it one evening. Years ago.'
  Pauli brought out his notebook and crossed his legs to balance it on his
  knee. 'Bergers? One floor up? Number eight? What is the first name of the
  father?'
  For a moment Martha Soml6 stared at him with her big eyes. Calmly and
  softly she said, 'No, no, no, Herr Regierungsdirektorworking-in-the-Gestapo
  Pauli Winter. I don't want anything unpleasant to happen to my friends
  upstairs.'
 'They will simply he moved,' said Pauli. 'No one will be harmed.'

                354
        'Don't work too hard, Pauli Winter'

  She was fishing the lemon from her empty teacup, apparently giving it all
  her attention. 'I said no.'
  He laid his thin gold pencit upon the open notebook. 'Frau SomI6 - Frau
  Winter, that is - I came here to help.'
  She looked up at him again, and, in a small theatrical gesture, she touched
  the wedge of lemon to her mouth to taste its sourness. She smiled and said,
  'You came here because your father asked vou to come.
 'That is correct
 'So don't make yourself iuto an altruistic benefactor.'
  Pedantically hesaid, 'I car, ic here to help because my father asked me.'
  'Not at the price of my ncjghbours, Pauli Winter. Do you think I could sit
  here wnting for f(,otsteps on the siairs? Knowing I sent them?'
 'Not to hurt thcm.'
 'No, I said. You just get ( ut of here and leave me alone.'
  Pauli felt humiliated. His tice went pale and he stood up totake his leave.
  -You misunderstand ric,' lie said.
  'Perhaps I do.' She looked at him. So this was the one who had come back so
  changed by tho war. From where in the family did he get that wonderful
  blond hai~-. It made him look perpetually young. Still he was Harrv's boy.
  Shk could see Harry Winter in him - in the way he moved, the way he spoke
  and he had Harry's touchiness - but it was a Harry Winter with0LI1 that
  ruthless determination.
   giVe [_.,IV office cai d. He got One from his waistcoat pocket. It had
   hi~, rank arid h s (;e,;tapo oftice on it. On the back of it, in his
   minute handwriting, I e pill, 'Frau Winier/Soirl-16 is under mN
   protection. 4 ' 'ont.ii. k with thi! of ficc mandator,; before action.'
   Then he signed it and passed it to her.
  Site took the card witho,i, tLa.nking hirp and put it iuto her handbag. 'Is
  YOLIF Mother VCIP` She didn't cing for the man.. she went arid got his Lit
  arid ovt r.,.,)ai from uic hill.
  He took the coaT and put i on. Ail the time he was waiting for her to
  change her mind. People )1ten did.
  'She is. Thank you.' fie t( ok the dark roll-brini hat that Inge had bought
  for him because it made him 'look important'. When she'd opened the door
  lie took M irtha Son116's hand gently, 'Goodbve, Frau Winter.'From upstairs
  came the same vocalist singing 'Thanks for the Memory' It was a giainophonc
  rccord.
 'Goodbye, young Pauli. Don't work too hard,' she said.

                355
         Nineteen hundred and thirty-eight

  It was another of her jokes, of course. She knew what he'd been sent to
  Vienna to do.

 Once he'd gone her face fell. She went back into the drawing room and poured
 herself another cup of tea. Boris came from the kitchen and held up his cup.
 She poured tea for him too. 'It's cold. I'll boil up more water,' he
 offered.
 'This will do,' she ,aid.
 'So he came?'
  'Yes, he carne.' She sighed and sank down onto the chair. She wrapped the
  silk dressing gown across her knees, the tigers smiled contemptuously.
 'You shouldn't have got angry, Mother. It never does any good.' 'I know.'
 'He wanted to help
 'How can I be sure
  'Father asked him io come.' He sat down beside her, wanting to comfort her
  but not being sure how to go about it.
 'I should have told him who you were,' she said.
 'Perhaps it's better he doesn't know.'
  She put an arm round him and kissed him on the ear. 'Wonderful Boris. You
  never complain about your stupid old mother.'
 He smiled and drank his tea.
  'Harry should have told him, and told Peter, too. Sometimes I wonder how
  Harry has kept you a secret for so long.'

 356
           IL939
           'Moscow?' said Pauli

 'Well, I said we'd do it and we have,' said Fritz Esser rubbing his big
 hands together in glee. Today he was wearing another of his seemingly
 endless supply of new, beautifully tailored suits, but his hair was thinning
 so that he was almost bald at the front.
  Pauli Winter faced him across the huge desk in the Ministry of the
  Interior, and poured out two glasses of schnapps. He seldom drank nowadays,
  but this was a celebration. 'To the next Minister of the Interior,' toasted
  Pauli.
  Fritz Esser held his drink high. The August sunshine caught the cut glass
  and made it sparkle 'To the next Minister of the Interior,' he said, 'as
  long as it's me.'
  Both men laughed and drank. It was a good big room in the Interior
  Ministry. A corner room in one of the best positions in the city. From one
  of these two big windows there was a view of the traffic along Unter den
  Linden, and through the other they could see Pariser Platz and the
  Brandenburg Gate. Since Hitler's fiftieth birthday in April, when the
  remarkable 'East-West boulevard' had been opened by a military parade that
  took four hours to pass through that gate, this had been the centre of a
  new, vigorous Imperial Germany. But inside the Ministry it all looked as it
  must have looked for many generations, with panelled walls, rich carpets
  and comfortable chairs. Only the formal sepia photograph of Adolf Hitler on
  the wall looked new.
  'The minister won't last long,' said Pauli, 'and the Fiffirer wants you in
  the job.'
 'That's what he said.'
 'Then the job is yours,' said Pauli.
  Esser looked round the room. 'The Fiffirer can't always be relied on to say
  exactly what he means,' said Esser cautiously. 'He likes to play off one
  against the other. I can't be sure he hasn't promised the job to someone
  else ... to Heini or Reini, for instance.'

                357
         Nineteen hundred and thirty-nine

  'They have enough on their plates,' said Pauli. He'd got used to Fritz
  Esser's calling people by their first names and knew that he meant
  SS-Reichsfiihrer Heinrich Himmler and SS-Gruppenfiffirer Reinhard
  Heydrich respectively. Sometimes Fritz Esser wanted everything formal:
  everyone addressed by rank and title. Some days, when visitors were
  present, Pauli was addressed as Dr Winter or just As Winter. On other
  days it was exactly the reverse, and Fritz would even refer to the
  170hrer as Dolfo. 'And now that we're working together at last, we'll
  show what we can do around here,' said Pauli.
  'You'll be back and forth to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, I'm afraid,' said
  Esser. 'They wanted you officially reassigned to Heydrich's SD and given
  an office there in Wilhelmstrasse, but I said you'd prefer to remain as
  you were.'
  'I've been through all that with them,'said Pauli. 'The SD is still a
  party organization. Heydrich still depends on party funds. I wouldn't
  like to have my future so unsure. I'll stay with the Gestapo and get my
  state pension and medical insurance.'
 'YLs,' said Esser.
  'I'm nearly forty, I have to be practical,' said Pauli. And then, to
  change the subject, he said, 'How did the meeting go?'
  'Shall I tell you something that always amazes me?' said Esser, pouring
  another drink, and continuing without waiting for a reaction. 'It's the
  way everyone I meet has some secret desire to be a member of the army's
  General Staff.'
  'Do they?' said Pauli. Who, in his secret dreams, had that very notion.
 'Everyone bows and scrapes to the generals: it makes me sick.'
  'Not the SS-Reichsffthrer?' said Pauli. Esser had just come from a
  meeting with Hirrunler.
  'He's just as bad. They all treat the soldiers like little tin gods. And
  Heini's latest obsession is to have his own soldier boys.'
 'He's got them aircady.'
  'He wants a whole bloody army corps of his own. Then he says they'll have
  to make him a member of the General Staff. "Why the hell do you want to
  be a member of the bloody General Staff?" I asked him.' Esser pulled a
  mournful face and imitated Himmiler's high voice: ' "You wouldn't
  understand, Esser: you're not an army man." ' 1, sser laughed. 'Silly old
  goat! I felt like saying he'd never been an army man, either, except for
  a few weeks of cadet school at the end of the war.'

                358
            'Moscotv?' said Pauli

  'He's given them field-grey uniforms; the army is furious,' said Pauli.
  ' "Waffen SS", he says he'll call them. But that's as far as it will get:
  a name. The army have already made sure that that stupid idea will come to
  nothing.'
 'Have they?'
  'Well, Heini can't draft men, can he? CODscription has completely stifled
  any idea of an SS army. As Heini himself says, just as he gets his kids
  indoctrinated and trained, the army grabs them, and they're lost to him.'
 'They can join the SS when they come out of the army,' said Pauli.
  Fritz Esser pulled a face at him. 'When they get out of the army. If they
  get out of the army. Heini doesn't want the army's leftovers; he wants a
  proper army of his own. He's quite crazy. You know how he gets these
  crackpot ideas, and then he can't think of anything else.'
 'It shouldn't be difficult to get round the problem,' said Pauli.
  'How?' Fritz Esser sniffed. 'The army's legal department keep screaming
  that they have the sole right to conscript men. And Heini's been all
  through it with his best lawyers looking for loopholes.'
  'Best lawyers?' said Pauli. 'Those shysters in the SS legal department?'
  'But the army have the sole right to draft men,' said Esser in that dogged
  way in which people say things they desperately hope will be contradicted.
  'Yes,' said Pauli. 'The army have the right to call fit men of military age
  into the army, but some men are exempt.'
 'Only the unfit,' said Esser. 'He's been all through that.'
 'No, not only the unfit,' insisted Pauli. 'Policemen are exempt.'
 'You can't run a country without a police force,' said Esser.
  Pauli smiled. 'You're right, but Himmler is the head of all German police
  forces. He could draft his policemen into this army he wants to set up, and
  then recruit more policemen to replace them.'
  Fritz looked at him with a set expression on his face. 'Would that be
  legal?'
  'More or less,' said Pauli, his mind working on the possibilities. 'And he
  could do the same thing with his concentration-camp guards. They sign up
  for twelve years, don't they. He could make his five SS-Totenkopf regiments
  into the cadre, and form a division round that. Then he could recruit more
  guards for the camps.'
 'That would give him a large Totenkopf battalion plus a

                359
         Nineteen hundred and thirty-nine

 Polizeidivision?' said Esser. 'He'd almost have the SS corps he's talking
 about.' He was still doubtful. 'You say it's legal to do that?'
 'Yes,' said Pauli.
 'Heini will kiss you if you're right,' said Esser.
 'Then tell him it's your idea,' said Pauli.
 'It would give him almost two divisions.'
  'Now that Czechoslovakia is no more, he could recruit in the new
  Reicbsprotektorat and perhaps in the Slovak Republic, too. With the
  Volksdeutsche living there as well, he'd certainly get enough for two
  divisions.'
  'Volksdeutsche. That would be legal, wouldn't it?' Esser touched the top of
  his head, where his few remaining strands of hair were carefully arranged.
  'Yes, the army could hardly complain about that. The army is only permitted
  to recruit within the borders of Germany - they have no right to draft
  Germans who live in other countries.'
  A sly smile had come over Fritz's large moonlike face as he envisaged
  telling all this to the ambitious Himmler. 'That's wonderful, Pauli.'
  'Is it? I'm not sure we should be encouraging the SS-Reichsfiihrer to
  encroach upon the army's preserves.'
  'Nonsense!' said Esser happily. 'Let's give him an army to organize; he
  needs something to do. Could you get these ideas of yours typed out into a
  short report, and have an appendix giving the necessary legal references.
  And seal it up and put it into my private safe? I don't want some snooper
  reading it.'
 1f that's what you want, Fritz, I'll dictate it this afternoon.'
  'The end of the week will do. I'm going to the Obersalzberg for a meeting
  with the Fiffirer and then, as soon as I return, I'm flying to Moscow with
  Ribbentrop and his gang.'
 'Moscow?' said Pauli.
 Fritz Esser winked.
  Pauli smiled and decided that it was one of Fritz's jokes, the sort of
  thing he said when he was going to disappear for a few days with a new
  girlfriend.
  'If I'm not back for Inge's birthday, give her a big kiss and tell her that
  I won't forget.' It had always been something of a mystery to Pauli that
  Inge and Fritz always got along well together. She really seemed to like
  him, despite his rough accent, coarse manners and ribald jokes. I wish I'd
  seen you before Pauli here, he'd often say with

                36o
            'Moscow? said Pauli

 a saucy wink, and give her a slap on the behind. 'Tell her happy birthday.'

 Pauli sometimes forgot the date of his wife's birthday, so nowadays he
 arranged that the florist sent lots of flowers and a card every year on that
 date. Sometimes it proved inappropriate - for instance, the time when they
 went away to Italy and came back to a house filled with dead blooms. And
 there was another time when the flowers arrived while they were having a
 row.
  But usually it worked well. This time he had arrived home to find carefully
  arranged flowers around the house and Inge in a particularly happy mood.
  They went to change to go out to dinner. Inge was sitting in front of the
  mirror in her petticoat applying make-up. She'd let her hair grow out so it
  was loosely curled over her ears and the nape of her neck, a more feminine
  style. It did need more visits to the hairdresser but they could afford
  such little luxuries.
  Around the dressing-table mirror, birthdays cards were arranged; birthday
  greetings from both sides of the farnily. The Winters always sent
  jewellery: this year a watch. Professor Wisliceny had sent a valuable
  antique vase filled with flowers. Pauli had paid the bill for her new
  dress, and Fritz had sent a kilo tin of Russian caviar. There were cards
  from everyone: even the Homers had remembered, and Peter and Lisl and
  Erich, ioo.
  On the bed Inge had laid out her husband's formal evening dress, complete
  with starched dress shirt and black silk socks. Pauli was searching through
  the chest of drawers to find all the necessary accessories: tie, pearl
  shirt studs, gold cuff links and the pocket watch that. he'd bought after
  Inge told him that only waiters wore wristwatches with their evening
  clothes.
  Inge was in her underwear - silk, black, lacy and expensive -sitting at her
  dressing table pencilling her eyebrows. She moved like a cat, sometimes
  Pauli wondered if she contrived these feline manners. On a hanger by the
  door was Inge's new dress. Instead of the clinging bias-cut dresses she
  usually wore she had this latest fashion: double-tier full skirt with
  ruched bodice, low straight neckline and halter strap. Inge had spent two
  hours this afternoon trying on various jackets with it to see which she
  preferred. She was very happy. Pauli took advantage of her good will to ask
  a favour, 'I'd like to invite my brother to dinner at the weekend,
  darling.'
 'Of course, Pauli, if that's what you want.'

                361
         Nineteen hundred and thirty-nine

 'It might be the last time we'll get the opportunity for some while.
 He's got his cabin booked: he's going to America.'
 'When?'
  'Next week. Grandfather sent the tickets. First class: promenade deck. The
  Bremen, I think it is.'
  'Is itsornething about Lottie?'said Inge. It would have to be about Lottie.
  Peter had nevei adjusted to Lottie's going to prison. Inge stood up and
  smoothed the petticoat over her hips while looking at her reflection. She
  was forty-two and regretted that her prayers about having a baby had not
  been answered, but at least she had a good figure, better than her younger
  sister Lisl, who was getting plump. 'America. Yes, well, he's pestered
  everyone in Germany about her.' It was a cruel little jest, and she felt
  self-conscious as soon as she'd said it. But Inge had never really forgiven
  Peter for choosing Lottie in preference to her. Even though she'd got over
  her love for him, that feeling of injured pride and resentment remained.
  Pauli said, 'I talked with him about it last week. Grandfather will be
  eighty-nine this year. He still has all his faculties. He was a personal
  friend of Herbert Hoover. Peter is hoping that he can get the State
  Department to petition for Lottie's release, on condition that she returns
  to live in America.' He struggled into his stiffly starched dress shirt and
  started pushing the buttons through the buttonholes. It wasn't easy.
  'Would Peter live th(re?' Inge had never been able to cope with foreign
  languages, and the idea of living anywhere other than Germany was appalling
  to her.
  'If Lottie was there, yes. I encouraged him. He stands a better chance of
  doing things at diplomati---corps level. Getting someone out of prisor,
  through regular channels is impossible. The Ministry of justice will never
  cooperate with us. I told Peter even the SSReichsfuhrer can't get prisoners
  out of prison. I know, I've seen him try.,
  'Who did the Reichsf ihrer want to relvase?' said Inge always keen for the
  latest gossip.
  Pauli had the shirt on and the cuff links done up. He began trying to get
  the stiff collar onto the back stud. The effort, with his arms twisted
  round his head, made him puff. He was terribly out of condition. He decided
  to take more exercise, starting next Monday. 'Releaw? No one. I'm talking
  about when we've tried to get people out of prisons to send Oem to
  concentration camps. People the SS particularly dislike.'

                362
            'Moscmv?' said Pauli

  Inge nodded gravely before lifting the dress above her head and letting it
  slide down over her, careful not to disarrange hair or make-up. 'Is he
  taking Helena?'
 'Yes, I arranged the travel documents.'
  Inge's head emerged from the dress and she said, 'She's only twelve:
  thirteen in September.'
  'Lottie's mother and everyone will want to see her. And the sea voyage will
  do her good. She's not been too well, lately. She's never really got over
  having her mother taken away.'
  'Poor child,' said Inge. 'How could Lottie have been so irresponsible. And
  the way Peter sits around moping all the time doesn't help anyone.'
 'Peter works hard,' said Pauli.
  'He's in that apartment playing the piano half the night. He doesn't eat
  properly, and his work is neglected. The other directors only keep him on
  the board because your Papa founded the company,.'
  Pauli corrected her. 'They keep him on the board because Peter knows more
  about running those companies than all the others put together.'
  'He's lucky they didn't force him to resign when he married Lottie.'
  Pauli laughed, sometimes his wife got carried away. 'They'd hardly do that,
  darling. That's years before Hitler came to power.'
  'Isn't be frightened there might be a war?' said Inge. 'He'd be trapped in
  America.'
  'There'll be no war,' said Pauli. 'Peter knows that: everyone knows that.'
  'The Poles will nevergivein about the corridor,' said Inge.'I know what the
  Poles are like.'
  'Leaveit to the Fiihrer,' said Pauli. 'The Austrians gave way, the Czechs
  gave way. We occupied Memel. Who will help the Poles if they fight us?'
 'The British.'
  For the fourth time he tried to do up the bow tie and again it was uneven.
  He tugged it undone again. 'Don't be silly, Inge. How can the British do
  anything? Look at the map and see for yourself.'
  'And France. France could attack the Western Front, as they did last time.
  Look at the map for yourself,' she replied rudely, she hated to be treated
  as if a woman's opinion was of no account.
 'Come here, Inge, and I'll tell you a secret. A real secret this time.'

               363
         Nineteen hundred and thirty-nine

 He went to the door and looked to make sure that the maid's room was
 unoccupied. It was her evening off but you couldn't be too careful. 'Fritz
 just flew back from Moscow. He was a special plenipotentiary from thc
 FCthrer, sent to keep an eye on that fool Ribbentrop. A pact will be signed:
 Stalin has agreed to everything. Poland -will be split down the middle,
 one-half for Russia and onehalf for us.'
  'A pact with Stalin?' Inge almost dropped the earring she was holding.
  'You're surprised, ajen't you. And think how surprised the French and the
  British will be. The Fiffirer will announce it just before our troops move
  across the frontier. The Western powers will all be too terrified to do
  anything. They are worms! The Fiffirer said that himself. "Our opponents
  are little worms," he told the generals. "Close your hearts to pity.
  Proceed brutally."
 'What did he mean?' said Inge.
  'I don't know,' said Pauli, 'but he knows how to talk to the generals.
  Someone has to put some guts into them.' He abandoned the bow tie and took
  the shoe horn to put his patent-leather shoes on. It was such it business
  dressing up, but Inge liked it.
  'With Stalin? A pact" said Inge. She simply couldn't come to terms with the
  idea. Everyone knew that the Russians were bestial sub-humans and that
  Stalin was the devil incarnate.
  'Fritz said they were received in Moscow with open arms. Not just the usual
  diplomatic exchanges - such celebrations that he could hardly believe it.
  Drink, caviar, wonderful food. Parties going on until the morning, and the
  Russians embracing our people like longlost brothers. Stalin toasted the
  Fuhrer's health. Fritz said the Russians were wonderftil: it was just like
  being with old Nazi Party comrades.'
 'You didn't tell Peter all this?'
  'Fritz only got back last night.' He loosened the laces fully and slipped
  the shoes on.
 'Did you ask Fritz about time off in S(-ptcmber?'
  'Our vacation on the Obersalzberg?' Ile stood up and stamped, first one
  foot, then the other.
  'If we leave it too latc, the Fijhrer won't be there. It's so much more
  exciting when he',, there.'
  She meant, of course, that she wanted another of those invitations to lea.
  Usually Bormajin would arrange for the Winters to be included, but last
  year Bormann had taken Pauli aside and asked him

               364
            'Moscow?' said Pauli

 about buying his house. He said the Fdhrer wanted to acquire the whole
 hillside, which was now being referred to as the Fahrergebiet. The process
 had been going on since 1933. Bormann was ruthless: some of the houses had
 been obtained by threats, and others had been seized. Inge was appalled at
 the idea of losing their holiday home. She had decided to take the Fiffirer
 aside and talk to him about it, and Pauli dreaded the thought of such a
 conversation. Inge sometimes went too far. And on the subject of their
 country house -and its proximity to the Rihrer's Berghof - Inge felt
 passionate. How would she ever be able to tell Lisl that they no longer had
 that wonderful status symbol?
  'I can't see how I'!] get my desk cleared, darling. The Fahrer has sent
  this danined note about euthanasia to Philip Bouhler - head of Chancellery
  - and it's landed on my desk.'
  'Why your desk, darling?' She lifted her skirt very high to adjust her
  suspender belt. Pauli watched her. She saw him looking at her and smiled.
  'Fritz was with Reichsfithrer Hintritler. He offered to take it over. And
  when Fritz takes on some task, I do it.'
  'How tiresome.' She stroked her silk stockings and straightened the seams.
 'There's no one to help
  'It can't take the whole month, Pauli. If we could get away by Saturday
  September 9 . . 'She let the new dress fall properly, and it looked fine.
  She twisted her head to we the back in the mirror.
  Speaking to Inge's reflection, Pauli said, 'Darling, be reasonable. The
  Fohrer's ordered that all the chronically insane and incurables in Germany
  must be put to death. And it's to be done by SS doctors. Can you imagine
  how much work that's going to make for me?'
  'Not a whole month.' She went to him and kissed him on the tip of his nose
  -- or, rather, almost kissed him, so she didn't leave her lipstick mark.
  Then she effortlessly did up his bow tie.
  Pauli was indignant. His wife didn't seem to understand how hard he worked.
  He reached for his jacket. 'Just for a start: I'm going to have to draw up
  some sort of legal definition of what is incurable, and what is insane.'
 'Surely it should be obvious,' said Inge petulantly.
  'It's no good my telling the doctors that it should be obvious,' said
  Pauli. He shook his cuffs out of his jacket and then straightened up to
  look at himself in the mirror. He could do with a new dinner suit: a

               365
         Nineteen hundred and thirty-nine

 bigger one. 'They'll want me to put a definition in writing. How do I do
 that? I've had no medical training.'
 'I didn't think of that,' said Inge.
  'No, exactly,' said Pauli somewhat mollified. 'People say these things
  without reatizing what's involved at the administration end. Incurable -
  what's that mean? Someone might have a pain in the ass that's incurable:
  does that mean I get Fritz to sign an order for the man to die, just
  because some doctor says he can't cure it? And there is the task of setting
  up euthanasia centres. The first one will be at Schloss Hartheim, near
  Linz, but one won't be enough. It will be a lot of work finding suitable
  buildings and equipping them. Someone will have to do a lot of travelling.
  I just hope it won't be me. Then we'll have to explain it carefully to the
  SS doctors, so they don't start complaining. These damned doctors stick
  together. Suppose they all said they didn't want to do it?'
  'Poor darling,' said Inge, going to him to put an arm round his waist and
  hug him. 'The doctors won't mind doing it if it's what the Fdhrer wants.'
  She could see he'd become agitated and decided to return to the subject of
  his annual leave after dinner. He would be in a better mood after dinner.
  Perhaps she'd wait till they were in bed.
 Pauli grunted and studied himself in the mirror.
 'So how long will Peter be gone?' she said to change the subject.
  'He'll have to go to California and see Lottie's mother. And Mama has made
  him promise to make the rounds of all the Rensselaer family. She feels
  guilty about not going back herself, I suppose. Papa insists that Peter
  take a good long rest, because he hasn't had a break for so long. I doubt
  if he'll be back much before Christmas.'
 'Do you think he'll really get her out of prison?'
  'I didn't think so at first. But you know what Peter is like: he's been
  writing to Grandad and Uncle Glenn. Uncle Glenn has good contacts in the
  State Department. They both seemed quite hopeful, but they say they can't
  do anything without more details. They insist he go in person. They say
  that a personal approach to the right people in Washington would make a lot
  of difference.'
 'And Peter speaks good English.'
  'Oh, yes, no problem there, completely fluent. Much better than mine.' He
  smiled as he remembered something. 'Grandad used to dislike Peter. I
  remember Peter kicking him when we were tiny. But now the old man has
  decided that Peter is the one he likes. I'm the bad Nazi.' He chuckled at
  the thought of it. 'Bad Nazi. He actually said "bad Nazi".'

                366
            'Moscow?' said Pauli

 'Peter told you that?'
  'Peter's mail is intercepted, Inge darling. All of it is opened. Anyone
  with a wife in prison for crimes against the state can't write letters
  to overseas addresses without our seeing what it's about.'
  'Did you arrange that?' She held up to herself first the earrings and
  then the gold necklace. One or the other, she decided, not both.
  'No, a wretch named Steiner, an old cop, arranged that I saw the
  interceptions. He's the one who arrested Lottie. He does me a favour
  every now and again, but he makes sure that for every favour he does for
  me, I do two or three for him. I thought I'd got rid of him when I went
  into Fritz's new department, but he still comes and finds me.'
  She decided on the necklace. Gold always looked good: it was rich but
  discreetly so. 'What sort of favours?' She looked at Pauli. He seemed to
  be ready, too. For once they'd arrive at the restaurant on time. They
  were going to Medvedj, her favourite Russian restaurant; it seemed an
  appropriate choice after hearing Pauli's amazing news.
  'Nothing that takes me more than a moment. I shouldn't complain, I
  suppose. Signatures on protective-custody orders and that sort of thing.
  Usually things he couldn't get past his own superior. He waits an
  opportunity and then brings them up to me.' He shrugged. 'They settle old
  scores that way. People they don't like disappear.'
  'You should send him after Brand,' said Inge flippantly. She twirled to
  let Pauli admire the lovely new dress he'd bought her.
 'Yes,' said Pauli. 'I should send him after Brand.'

 367
           1940
            The sound stage

 'Folks around these p:irts said I was nuts. said Mrs Nita Danziger. She
 let the sentence tail away. She obviously wasn't nuts, there was no need
 to say io. She'd been relating the story of returning alone to California
 from Berlin after the Wall Street crash had impoverished her. 'Sim(,n's
 stockbroker advised me to do exactly the opposite. He said to sell,ny
 shares in the movie company and hold on to the house. My lawyers said the
 sarne thing. But I'd had enough of their advice by that tim( . From here
 on I play things my way, I told them, and . . .'
  'And you did,'said Gl,--nn Rensselaer. Like so many people talking to
  Nita Danziger, he felt the need to finish her sentences for her. 'But
  you're still living here,' iie said. He moved his shoulders to get some
  air on his body: his lightweight clothes were sticking to him. He'd never
  get used to this sort of weather. Her'ranch house'was on a hill, but on
  'windless days lil- e this the thermometer soared.
  She smiled and got u!) to close the flyscreen and wedge open the d(K)r
  so that there would be a movement of air. There were two large electric
  fans going, but her visitor was obviously uncomfortable, It was
  Septembei-, the first heavy rainstorms had come out of the Pacific Ocean
  and passed, le,. ving clear ~,kies and hot sunshine. Nita Danziger seemed
  unaffected by the heat. She was dressed in a brown shirt and an English
  w(x,l sweater with pearls. Her hair was perfectly arranged, as it she'd
  jusi come from the hairdresser. 'Sure I bought the old place back again
  I paid nearly double for it, but it was worth it. 711iis house holds a
  million memories *or me. Memories like that . . .'
  For a few minutes thcy didn't speak. They'd known each other a long time.
  Her late husband - Simon Danziger - had known Glenn's father for ages,
  but for a very long time there had been an insurmountable barrier between
  them. The Danzigers had set their

                368
             The sound stage

 minds on Lottie's marrying a Jewish boy. They blamed Glenn for encouraging
 the marriage with Peter Winter. Now Nita, although only a stepmother, and
 despite her affection for Peter, still felt bitter about the tragedy that
 had come of that marriage. Perhaps that's why she persisted in calling him
 'Mr'.
 'Your hunch was right,' said Glenn.
  'I've always been crazy about movies, Mr Rensselaer. And those young
  fellows at the studios were making the kind of movies I like. My lawyer
  called them "trashy" and maybe he was right but folks have a right to see
  trashy movies if they like them. And I like them.'
 'So you sold the house and bought more movie shares.'
  'They were so cheap. One of the partners took a beating in the crash, the
  wav so many of us did. He preferred to sell his holding to me. . . . `
 'You did everything right, Mrs Danziger.'
  'There were some tough decisions. Remember that trip on the GrafZeppelin?
  That day we sat talking? I'm glad I didn't know what I was about to go
  through.' She tried to pour coffee for him, but the pot was empty. 'More
  coffee?'
 'No thanks, Mrs Danziger.'
  'I guess you didn't visit with me to hear all this old family history.
  You came to see Peter.'
  'It's good to see you again,' said Glenn. He'd called on Mrs Danziger
  before going to see Peter. There was something he wanted to find out.
  'Like I told you on the phone, he's settled down real well now, but it
  hasn't been easy for him.'
 'It's a year since he left Berlin.'
 'No one could have figured on little Helena's being sick.'
 'Has the war made a difference to him?' asked Glenn.
  'The war with England? Sure. It shook us all, didn't it? But now that
  France has surrendered they say it will soon be possible to get to
  Germany via Portugal.'
 'The British navy have a blockade,' said Glenn.
  'Peter went through all that with the German consul. He said it wasn't
  something Peter should try along with a sick little girl.'
 'I'd say that's good advice,' said Glenn.
  'The German consul said he should wait until the British surrender, too.'
  Glenn would not be drawn into that kind of speculation. He said, 'I'm
  hoping that Peter will stay on here. Do you know his plans?'

                369
          Nineteen hundred and forty

  'He's reconciled to staying here through Christmas. The doctor said Helena
  wouldn't be fit to travel before then.'
  'You see,' said Glenn, having decided to enlist Mrs Danziger's aid. 'I'm
  hoping he'll stay longer than that. Lottie will be released from prison in
  1942, and the American ambassador in Berlin has been told - unofficially -
  that she'll certainly be deported. Where will that leave Peter? He's a
  German citizen: I can't imagine the Nazis will let him go with her. They
  might even draft him into the navy -I he still has a reserve commission, I
  guess.'
 'He worries about Lottie. He worries about her all the time.'
  'He must stay here in America,' said Glenn. 'Even if Peter goes back
  toBerlin, he won't be with Lottie.'
  'That"s easy to say, Mi Rensselaer. But it's only natural that Peter should
  want to be near her. He loves her to distraction. It's pitiful to see
  himsometimes. It's only work that's helped him through the last few
  months.'
  'I need to know if he expresses any opinion about the Nazis. Don't think
  I'm snooping on him. But if I'm to help him I need to know his state of
  mind. Does he feel he should be back in Germany fighting the British?
  That's what I need to know.'
  'He doesn't like Hitler and the Nazis. That's something I am sure about.'
 'Are you, Mrs Danziger?'
  'Yes, I am sure.' He'd never heard her so resolute. She stood up to adjust
  the fan. 'I'm a Jew, Mr Rensselaer. I'll do anything you suggest that might
  prevent my little Helena from going back to Nazi Germany.'
  Glenn. Rensselaer looked at his watch. 'Peter is giving me a tour of the
  studio so I mustn't be late.'
 'Peter Winter is a fine man, Mr Rensselaer.'
  'I know.' Ile indicated the parcel he'd been carrying. 'I brought a little
  gift for Helena. ihe probably has enough dolls already, but . . .'
  'No little girls have enough dolls,' said Nita Danziger. 'I'll get her.'
  While Mrs Danziger went to get Peter's daughter, Glenn looked round the
  room. It never changed. After buying the house for a second time, she'd
  restored it to exactly what it had been hke before. There was a zertain
  absurdity in such dedication, for the house had never been tastefully
  arranged or even very comfortable. It was a gloomy place, built for a
  silent-movie star back in the days when any

                370
             The sound stage

 Hollywood star living out here in Ventura County was considered an eccentric
 recluse. The house had a Western motif: leather bar-stools like saddles,
 arranged down a long counter that was said to have come from an authentic
 cowl)oy bar in Deadwood City, or some such remote place that the moN ics had
 invested with a mythological significance. On the walls %ere paintings
 depicting scenes from the Old West and half a dozet, dusty decapitated heads
 of longhorn steers. They glowered myop~cally across the room, as if
 resenting the prospect of being castrated ind cut into steaks.
 'You remember your uncle Glenn,' Mrs Danziger prompted.
  Helena was almost fourtet n years old, a shv little girl with Peter's
  pale-blue Rensschter eyes and her mother's wavy jet-black hair. 'Of course
  I do.,' said Helena confidently. She came to him and kissed him sedately.
 'I brought you a doll. Do you still play with dolls?'
 'Sometimes.'
 'I hear you've been sick.'
  'I'm going to school again now,' she said. She had the careful almost
  accentless voice of the language student, and her phrases seemed to have
  been adopted whole from the speech of the grownups around her.
 'Well, that's great,' said Clerm.
  'Just three mornings a w(ek,' said Nita Danziger. 'Next month maybe shell
  start dancing class.'
 'Do you like dancing?' said Glenn.
 'I want to be a dancer,' said Helena.
  Glenn smiled. Nita Danziger had been a (lancer in her younger days. He
  suspected that th( motivation came from her. He gave Helena the doll. it
  wasn't much of a present: a blank-faced ballerina he'd bought hurt iedly in
  a downtown department store. And it was obvious that she considered
  'ierself too old for such things.
 'It's perfectly lo%,ely,' she ~;aid politely and cuddled the doll.
 'Your English is wonderful,' said Glenn.
 'My accent is swell, but my grammar need.s working on.'
 'She studies verv hard at ii,' said Mrs Danziger approvingly.
 'Have you been to Europe lately?' Helena asked.
 ,Yup!,
 'Did you see my mornmy?'
 'Maybe next time,' said G'.enn awkwardly.
 'She's servinga sentence in prison,' said Helena.
 'That's a kind ofmisunder standing,' said Glenn.

               371
          Nineteen hundred and forty

  'She's a victim of the Nazis,' said Helena. 'That's what I told the girls
  at school.'
 'What did they say?' said Glenn.
 'They said she was a spy.'
 'What did you tell them.'
  'I said yes, she was,' said Helen,t and in a sophisticated aside added. 'It
  was better to say that. The girls at school thought that was exciting.'
  'Well, keep working on the English,' said Glenn, looking at his watch
  again. 'I have to go and see your father now.'
  'Thank you for the doll, Uncle Glenn. It was very thoughtful of you.' She
  gave a stately bow.
 'Sure,' said Glenn.

 To anyone who'd not seen a movie studio before it was all quite staggering.
 Right in the centre of the San Fernando Valley, amid orange groves that
 seemed to reach as far as the San Gabriel Mountains, there were these three
 great buildings, each as high as a city block and almost as extensive. These
 were the sound stages, and each had cost half a million dollars. Behind them
 were almost a hundred acres of land ponds, hills, a Western street and the
 derelict rear half of a gigantic Spanish galleon complete with sails that
 were now shredded and stained. On the back lot, the filming that had been
 abandoned because of the rain was now resumed, and a posse of bandits
 galloped through the street there for the mute camera.
  The big red lights on the wall went out, and two men emerged from the
  building upon which the words 'Stage Two' had been painted in huge letters.
  Despite the arc-lit stage from which they'd come, the two men were blinking
  in the even brighter sunlight. Glenn Rensselaer had not changed much over
  the years, but a year in the United States had completely transformed his
  nephew Peter. He'd spent a couple of'weeks with Cy Rensselaer and Dot, but
  it was when he got to California that he felt reborn. Forty-four years old,
  he looked at least ten years younger. His hair was short, trimmed close to
  the skull the way the local college boys liked it these days, with a
  short-sleeved open-neck white shirt and bright-blue-and-whitestriped
  trousers with white canvas shoes. Peter's face and arms were tanned, and he
  no longer seemed so self-conscious about his crippled hand.
  'I certainly am glad you showed me around, Peter. I've never seen a movie
  being shot before.'

                372
             The sound stage

  'This will be the studio's first large-scale Technicolor musical,' said
  Peter. 'It's a big investment and we don't want too many people in the
  industry knowing exactly what we're doing.' He looked at his uncle. He'd
  guessed that Gl,--nn was bringing news about Lottie, but he didn't press
  him. Glenn had this strange need to get himself prepared for important
  conversations, and Peter knew that,
 'You already talk like a movie executive,' said Glenn.
  'That's,what I arn,' said Peter. 'Thanks to my father-in-law. I wish I'd
  known poor Simon D inziger better. lie must have had an amazing business
  brain.'
 'Really?' said Glenn.
  'He sold these orange groves to the movie company, and kept a large piece
  of the equity. How many people saw what profits were going to come from
  movie-making? And that was back in the days of silent films. What
  foresigh~! Mrs Danziger is a very rich woman now.
  Glenn looked a, his nephcw and decidud that there was nothing to be gained
  from telling him how his father-in-law's fiscal recklessness had led to
  despair and suicide, that his ownership of the stock in the movie company
  was due onlv to the buyer's lack of liquidity. 'Yeah,' said Glenn. 'It
  worked out zeal well for her.'
  A small electric tractor went buzzing pasT them. towing a train containing
  racks filled with eighteenth-centur y costumes: crinolines, naval uniforms
  and other gorgeous garment~ of doubtful historical accuracy. 'Some of the
  studios are switching to war movies,' said Peter, 'but we'r~. ticking t,)
  what they call "escapism" here.' He laughed at the sirange word
 'So f see.'
  'When they asked me to )ecome a vice president, I knew it was only because
  of Mrs Danzigt r s holdings, said Peter. 'But since then I've saved them
  from some bad mistakes. Thcy were going to sell the old studio in CnIver
  City, 6,ut I persuaded them to lease it to a company that wi' I build
  offic,--s there. We Jid very well on the lease. I believe that real-estate
  values in the Los Angeles region will soar in value one day. Anil, I went
  i ito the contract department and found that no one working there spcaks
  any foreign languages. No one! So I sorted out their European distribution
  contiacts. Can you believe that when the war began thev were talking about
  cutting their losses and withdrawing hom the Eiropean market? In fact, of
  course, the war has meant more and more people going to the movies.
  Soldiers, facton, workers, refugees and evacuated people - the movies are

                373
          Nineteen hundred and forty

 their only entertainment. And the Rensselaer brothers have been wonderful.
 Having the support of the bank made me indispensable.' Peter smiled.
 'And now you're writing tunes.'
 'Who told you that?'
  'Nita Danziger. She showed me the publicity with your name on it.'
  Peter smiled modestly. 'They let me try my hand when they needed music
  urgently. One or two numbers have been popular.'
  They looked up at the sound of aircraft engines. Overhead four brightly
  painted naval biplanes flew in a wobbly formation. 'Trainers,' said Glenn
  'That's why the sound stages were built,' said Peter. 'Planes didn't matter
  in the old days of silent movies.'
 'I'd say you've become an American,' said Glenn.
  Peter answered literally, as he always did. 'I am going to take out papers.
  Helena is at school. She has private English lessons and she manages the
  language very well. It has taken her a long time to learn that English has
  so few rules. One of the Rensselaers has a son born the same year as
  Helenz, and they seem to like each other. When Lottie comes out of Germany
  we'll live here. I haven't said that to anyone but you, Glenn. But I have
  made up my mind.' It was fitting that he should confide his secret first to
  Glenn Rensselaer. During the time they'd spent in Washington they'd become
  very close. Peter had been touched to discover how hard and how long his
  uncle had worked trying to get Lottie released.
 'But you're happy?'
  'If Lottie was with me I'd be in paradise.' He looked at Glenn. Now surely
  he would tell him what was happening about getting Lottie released.
  'The reason I'm asking you, Peter, is because I'd like you to come to
  Washington.'
 'What is the latest news about Lottie?'
  'This isn't about Lottie exactly. Except that it's about thousands of
  Lotties, I suppose.'
 'What do you mean?'
  'You saw the newsreel of the German army's victory march through Paris. The
  news agencies say a German invasion fleet is massing along the Channel
  coast. There are people in Washington, plenty of people, who are convinced
  that the British are not going to be able to last much longer.'

                374
             The sound stage

 'I know.'
 'How do you feel about that, Peter?'
 'Hitler will have to be stopped. He's a madman.'
 'Stopped or defeated?'
 'What do you mean, Glenn?'
  'We all want to see Hider stopped, but now it looks like the only way to
  stop him is to defeat him. That means defeating Germany: shooting bullets,
  dropping bombs, sinking ships and killing Germans. What I mean is, how far
  will you go in stopping him?'
  'I have already given your question a great deal of thought. I want Hitler
  stopped. You tell me that the only way to stop him is to defeat Germany. I
  think you are right. My poor Fatherland will have to suffer defeat all over
  again. I cry for them.'
  'There are people in Washington who think that the U.S. will have to fight,
  too. Soon, perhaps.' They moved well aside for a truck delivering fully
  grown trees for the next sequences of the western being shot on the back
  lot.
 'Against Germany?'
  'Yes, against Germany. Our intelligence-collecting organization is more or
  less useless. We know nothing about Germany except what the embassy sends
  us, and that's not much. The President has now authorized the formation of
  a secret intelligence outfit. Even Congress doesn't know about us. Our
  state of ignorance is such that only by employing people like yourself,
  who've recently come from Germany, can we be ready to train our
  youngsters.'
  'And you want me to join?' They'd arrived at Glenn's car, a big V-8
  Cadillac with air conditioning and all the extras that only Cadillacs have.
  'There's not much money in it. No uniforms, badges, or medals. We'd
  probably be able to get your citizenship through more quickly - although
  even that I can't promise - and I can offer you only the salary of a U.S.
  army major. But we are a rather informal group of warriors. If you wanted
  to take the American bar exams, I could get you tuition and time out. I
  might be able to arrange for you to come back here and dabble in your
  movie-making every few months. And we'd give you travel expenses: airplane,
  not that damned train.'
 'You Americans are a strange people, Glenn.'
  'Yeah, so I've heard.' He got in the car and brought down the electric
  window so they could talk. Now he would tell him about Lottie. This was the
  way Uncle Glenn always did things.
 Peter leaned down to him. 'And I am very German. The idea of

                375
          Nineteen hundred and forty

 being an officer in an army run in such a fashion that its officers are
 civilians when they prefer it, is more than I can comprehend.' 'So what
 do you say?' 'I'll try,' said Peter. Glenn let in the clutch so that
 the car started to move. It was only then that Peter finally realized
 there was as yet no news of her. He felt physically sick with
 disappointment.

 376
            IL941L
           'It was on the radio'

 Lottie had fought the sysiem. She'd not been insolent or disobedient: she'd
 fought the pi ison routine by not submitting to it. She went out of her way
 to be fricridly and helpful to the other prisoners. She laughed and joked
 and kept smiling in the way her father had said you keep smiling in the face
 of rudeness or hostility. But she'd been in prison a long time now and she
 was getting tired. And today it was hot; damned hot. The sort of day to go
 sailing, swimming or sunbathing on Berlin's wonderful lakes.
 'You get used to it. That's the trouble,' said the plump woman.
  'No talking!' The loud voice of the prison guard echoed across the cobbled
  yard as the four prisoners walked smartly and quickly, as regulations
  prescribed, towards the kitchen. It was hot and humid; the women felt
  sticky in their clothes. Everything was tiring.
  Once they were delivered to the warder in the kitchen, and the door was
  locked behind them, discipline relaxed. The big kitchen was like nowhere
  else in the whole prison. Only here was there daylight in abundance-,
  sunlight streamed down through the skylight and made all the spotlessly
  clean wooden tables and the steaming pots gleam and shine. But e% en with
  the skylights wide open, the air was hotter and wetter here than anywhere
  else in the whole prison.
  'What do you inean?'said Lottie to the buxom woman who'd been
 reprimanded I in !he yard.
  'Prison. You get to depend on it. You rit-ver have to think for yourself:
  just obey orders.'
 'But that's just what it's like outside,' said Lottie.
  The woman did not smile. She was an enthusiastic Nazi and did not hold
  against them her imprisonment foi being an abortionist. The fact that her
  last patient had died from infection was bad luck. It was something to be
  blamed on fate or God or the careless young soldier - nothing to do with
  the police, the court, or the Nazis.

                377
         Nineteen hundred and forty-one

  'Which of you two made the goulash yesterday?' This woman was a Female
  Police Auxiliary, a neurotic, fidgety individual who took great pride in
  her smart police-green uniform with the small side cap that she wore
  perched on her forehead.
 'I did,' said Lottie.
  'Come with me.' She was a stern-faced woman of about forty but she was not
  unfriendly. She'd told Lottie the previous day that her husband was a tank
  gunner with a division stationed in occupied Poland, far away from the war
  against England, and she thanked God for that.
  She took off her uniform jacket and arranged it on a hanger before putting
  on her white apron. Then she led Lottie into the bread store and started
  her weighing up the ingredients for 1,22o Leberkn6del. 'Half these girls in
  here can't read or write,' she complained.
  Lottie smiled and said nothing. The woman's eyes were reddened, as if she'd
  been crying.
  'I can't trust them to weigh ingredients.' She watched Lottie putting
  breadcrumbs into a box to weight them on the scales. There would not be
  much liver in the 'Bavarian liver dumplings', they'd be bread and garlic
  with some chopped fat, the way they'd been since the war began in 1939.
  'Is everything all right for you at horne?' said Lottie in her fluent but
  imperfect German.
  The woman corrected Lottie's grammar, in a flat, fast automatic way,
  without seeming to notice she was doing so. 'Yes, everything is in order,'
  she added.
  Lottie continued the weighing in silence. Then the woman looked round the
  storeroom furtively and said, 'We've invaded Russia!'
 'What?' said Lottie.
  'They told us not to tell the prisoners.' The woman picked up a measure and
  started shovelling the crumbs.
  'Are you sure?' Lottie wondered if she'd misunderstood the German. She did
  sometimes.
  'It was on the radio. Fanfares every few minutes. Dr Goebbels read the
  FOhrer's proclamation over all stations this morning. It's the biggest
  offensive in the history of the world.' The woman had been dying to tell
  someone-, you could tell that by the way she said it.
 'Russia!' said Lottie, trying to understand what it meant.
  'At dawn this morning. My Karl will be in the thick of it. The tanks always
  are.' Her fears were tinged with pride. The propaganda

                378
            'It 2vas on the radio'

 service had singled out the Panzer divisions for special praise since the
 victories in France the previous year.
 'I'm sure he'll be safe,' said Lottie.
  'We have four children,',;aid the woman. There was sweat on her brow.
  'Four, seven, ten and thirteen. I couldn't manage without Karl.' She kept
  on shovelling the crumbs, working fast, as if trying to set Lottie a good
  example.
 'You mustn't worry,' said Lottie.
  'Army Group Centre,' said the woman mechanically. 'Second Armoured ~Group.
  By Christmas they say they'll be in Moscow.'
  Lottie looked down and saw that the distraught woman had been tipping the
  breadcrumbs or to the floor.

      'Yi -s, Hell Hi der, Colonel Wt4--sdcker'

 It was December. The isolatcd little farm was half buried under deep drifts
 of snow, and yet still more snow (ame. Inside the dark farmhousea small
 group of ~ taff officers stood round a kitchen table, stamping their f,--(t
 and slapping themselves to keep warm while they awaited the arrival of their
 Divisional commander. It was daylight outside, but the windows had been
 boarded up in art attempt to keep out the cruel Russian winds The talk was
 about the 258th Infantry Division, whicl-, had got a reconnaissance
 battalion as far as the Moscow suburb ot Khimki
  'One of the soldiers wen to the streetcar stop and picked up a ticket. Hc'~
  been showing it to everyone.' The signals captain spoke loudl-, because of
  the noise )f the wind.
  'There'll be pluatv of strretcar tickets for everyone when we get there,'
  growled Colonel We zs~cker, who after the recent casualties had become the
  s,:nior offic-t- of this detached 'battle group'.
  'Thev weren't there long, said a captain from the panzer regiment showinga
  perver,~c pride in his weaponry 'The Russki tanks pushed them out right
  ixv-ay.' He t~uchcd his nose. It was frostbitten. He must find the doitor
  immeciatelv the coqterL-nce ended. He hoped he wouldn't losc it the way
  ;orne ofthe frostbitten soldiers had lost toes, finizers and noses. There
  was something not suitably heroic about going home with a nose missing due
  to frostbite.
  'This is Mos,:ow,' said Weizs5cker. 'They'll fight harder for Moscow. We
  all know that.
 They heard the sentry shuffle to attention in the snow outside, and

                379
         Nineteen hundred and forty-one

 then there was a flash of light as the door opened and the general appeared,
 like a demon king in a children's pantomime.
  The officers came to attention and saluted. They were all a little afraid
  of General Alexander Horner. He was tall and slim, an intimidating figure
  with a tight-skinned skull-like face, and a sabre scarred cheek. The sort
  of Prussian officer they used to see depicted in political cartoons in the
  time when such cartoons were permitted.
  The general had been off somewhere in his half-track vehicle. God knows
  where he went on these jaunts, he took no one with him, and asking his
  driver was useless. Young Winkel was the son of one of the general's first
  war comrades, and treated everything the general did as a military secret.
  'Good morning, gentlemen. Have we received the situation reports yet?' He
  took off his helmet and fastidiously knocked snow from the shoulders of his
  greatcoat.
  'The radio is kaputt, Herr General!' The frightened young boy who was
  crouched in the far corner looked up at him as if terrified of being
  blamed.
  'Have you tried other crystals?' Horner had to shout: the wind was louder
  now, screaming like a thousand banshees, and there was the steady thump of
  the generator, too. The light was inadequate but there was enough to see
  the maps, the throbbing generator and the cables linking it to the lights
  and radio. And enough light to see the splashes and stains along the wall
  where animals had been tethered, and the dirt floor that probably stank
  when it wasn't so cold. It was hard to believe that humans lived in such
  squalor alongside their animals, but there was a rough wooden rack on the
  wall, bunks in which six Russian peasants had slept.
 'I've tried most of them, Herr General.'
  Horner glanced down at the blank message pad. Only the date had been filled
  in there. December 6 1941. Not much chance now of fulfilling that toast -
  Christmas Day in Moscow - that that fool WeizsAcker had proposed back in
  June, when the German armies moved forward. 'Keep trying.'
 'Yes, Herr General.'
  General Alex Horner turned back to the other officers who were standing
  round the table. They were all bundled up into every stitch of clothing
  they possessed. Some of them had also found, bought, or stolen civilian
  clothes - scarves, knitted gloves and sweaters. What a sight they were,
  more like a rabble of refugees than German officers. Horner looked at the
  map and continued to stare at it for a long, long

                38o
        'Yes, Heil Hitler, Colonel WeizuIcker'

 time. He closed his eyes. He was becoming hypnotized by the map, obsessed
 with it. He'd seen the same thing happen in the first war, commanders just
 staring at maps, frozen as a driver or pilot freezes at the controls,
 incapable of thinking a rational thought or giving a sensible command. He
 pushed the map aside angrily. Without proper reports from his headquarters,
 and contact with the front-line positions, the map was useless.
 'Do you have despatch riders who know the HQs, ColoneW
  'Yes, Herr General.' Of course he did - he wasn't a complete blockhead.
 'We'll pull back as far as the river.'
 'Everyone, Herr General?'
  'No, not everyone. A rearguard will remain. One of your rifle regiments
  should be enough.'
  'Yes, Herr General.' Colonel WeizsAcker was too inexperienced. He'd thought
  that they'd be marching into the Kremlin by now, the way - as a captain -
  Weizs~icker had led his company into Paris, smiling at the pretty girls and
  keeping an eye open for a suitable restaurant to eat in that evening. Well,
  this one wasn't like that.
  Homer went to the window and found a narrow gap in the boards through which
  to squint. The artillery fire continued all the time, and the flickering
  light of it made the dark-grey sky lighten along the horizon. Yesterday the
  thermometer had gone down to thirty-two degrees below zero, but today was
  even colder. It was damned dark; he looked at his watch hardly able to
  believe that it was eleven o'clock in the morning. The whole landscape was
  grey with snow. It wasn't like the snow he'd known as a child in East
  Prussia, or like the snow he'd pushed down Pauli Winter's neck at
  Lichterfelde on the day when they went up a class and received their
  bayonets. This wasn't the sort of snow he'd galloped Pola through at Bemau
  near Berlin. This snow was grey: ask any of the thousands of German
  soldiers who were out there frozen to death under that stuff. Ask the
  pinched, blue-faced sentry standing here at the farmhouse door with his
  feet wrapped up in huge bundles of straw in the hope that his toes wouldn't
  come off with his boots. Ask any of the shivering men who were still in
  their summer uniforms, because winter uniforms were in short supply, or the
  luckier ones nearer the supply depots, who were now discovering that the
  German-issue winter clothing was never intended for these arctic
  temperatures.
  He came back to the table and tried to see the map with a fresh eye. Field
  Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch had suffered a heart attack

                381
         Nineteen hundred and forty-one

 and had requested that he be relieved. Well it wasn't difficult to see why.
 The armies round Moscow were in a damned perilous position, and German
 soldiers were simply not trained or equipped for fighting, or even existing,
 in these conditions.
 'Supply troops first, Herr General?'
  'No,' said Horner. He paused as the reciprocating engine of the generator
  missed a beat or two and the bulb went dull yellow and then orange and red
  before going out completely. For a moment it was dark, the interior lit
  only by slatted beams of light that came through the boarded window. Then
  the engine picked up and the light brightened. Homer said, 'We must assume
  we'll have to fight our way through.'
 'Fight to our rear, Herr General?'
  'Look for yourself.' he said tonelessly. 'No radio messages from the second
  panzer regiment or from the engineers. Then the rifleregiment headquarters
  also goes silent. What do you make of it? Look for yourself, Colonel.' It
  all made sense. He'd felt the front tightening over the last few days. AD
  patrols and reconaissance units had been repulsed with unusual promptness:
  he should have guessed what was coming, and might have done so, except that
  Fourth Army intelligence kept insisting that the Red Army had nothing left
  to fight with. Nothing!
  'Damn these radios,' said Colonel WeizsAcker. He was puzzled. Had the
  Russians used some secret weapon to render the radio useless, or was it
  this terrible weather.
  'Don't you understand?' said Horner. 'Look, man. Look!' He lifted his arm
  and slowly brought it down upon the map so that all the silent positions
  were covered. They were silent because all the units, including the
  headquarters troops were on the move. The alternative explanation for their
  silence was too terrible to contemplate.
  'My God!' said the colonel. The other officers said nothing. They were
  youngsters, except for a couple of old men from the Reserve. Perhaps they
  didn't fully understand what it meant. But Weizsdcker understood: he'd been
  in France in 1940. That's what Guderian had done to the French.
  To eliminate any possibility of a misunderstanding, Horner said, 'The
  Russians have launched an attack and sliced right through our front.'
 'In this weather? It's not possible.'
  'They're probably using sledges: sledge-borne infantry, sledgemounted
  artillery and ski troops reinforcing Cossack divisions.'

                382
       'Yes, Heil Hitler, Colonel WeLesdcker'

 WeizsAcker made no response. 'Making for the river,' said Homer. He had no
 evidence to support this assertion, but he knew it was right.
 'Jesus Christ! Begging the general's pardon.'
  'The Almighty is fully occupied right now,' said Homer*grimly. 'We must
  save what we can, and try and reform along the riverbank here.' He
  shouldn't have used the word 'try'. He must be positive, assertive and
  confident. 'Reform along here, fight and die holding the line.'
  Colonel Weizskker glanced at his general, surprised by this dramatic: prose
  style. 'The bridges are here ... and here,' said the colonel, pointing to
  another section of the river.
  Horner nodded. 'Yes, we'll send the Feldgenclarmerie to the bridges.' He
  paused. He had no military police. He was exhausted. He'd forgotten for a
  moment that he wasn't with von Kleinclorf at Divisional Headquarters, he
  was with these idiots at the headquarters of his 'battle group'. On paper
  it comprised a rifle regiment, a panzer regiment plus engineers, some
  signals troops and an artillery battalion. In fact it was a collection of
  military oddments suffering fatigue, shock, frostbite, frozen diesel oil
  and cracked engines, and it was scattered over too large a front, with its
  radios giving frequent trouble. 'Organize a company of infantry to block
  the bridges. No one will cross either bridge. No one, whatever his rank,
  his injuries or his written or oral authority. No one. They will shoot
  anyone who comes within one hundred metres of the ridge this side of the
  riverbank. Get on to that immediately. Send someone reliable.' He paused.
  'Make it two companies. Some bloody fools might be desperate enough to try
  the ice floes.'
 'I have just the right man, Herr General.'
  Homer turned back to the staff. 'Infantry first, of course. If there are
  not enough half-track vehicles serviceable, the rest must go on foot. The
  tanks will keep to the roads, such as they are. Keep visual contact. 'Von
  Kleinclorf will probably start pulling back, too, as soon as they realize
  what is happening. Tell the commanders that movement on the northeast might
  he our own people. Although in this damned weather God knows how close you
  have to get to see anything properly.' He looked at his watch. 'The
  infantry must start at 13oo hours.' He looked at the colonel. 'You're in
  command, Weizs5cker.'
 'And the general?' Colonel Weizskker wet his lips.
 'I'll take my chance to the north,' said Horner.

                383
         Nineteen hundred and forty-one

  'As the general chooses,' said Weizs5cker, 'but surely that will lead you
  straight into the centre of the Red advance.' He was nervous, thought
  Horner. He didn't want to take the battle group back to the river line.
  He didn't want to take anyone anywhere. Was that because he had no
  confidence in Homer's plan, because he didn't believe Horner's diagnosis,
  or because he was shit-scared.
  Homer looked at the battle-group commander trying to decide. Should he
  relieve him? It was a terrible thing to do to an officer. WeizsAcker's
  military career would end there and then. And which of the others would
  do better? He looked at the faces: eager young men with amazing reserves
  of energy and enthusiasm. But now they were bewildered. Not demoralized
  yet, but bewildered. None of them had ever faced this sort of war, or
  even dreamed what it might be like. Neither had Horner. No one had,
  except the Russians. 'I don't think so, Colonel. If I was the Red
  commander I'd leave my centre weak and put everything on the flank, to
  break right through to the river. He doesn't want to push our centre back
  or try to capture Divisional HQ. By now von Kleindorf should have begun
  to pull back. And that means he'll bring Divisional HQ through the
  crossroads where we lost all those tank destroyers that would be so
  useful now. There is no other way for him to go.'
 'Except cross country,' said the Colonel.
  'I hope to God he doesn't try that with HQ transport,' said Homer.
  'You'll hold to this side of the river, Colonel Weizsicker. When I find
  Divisional HQ, their communications will enable me to re-form and
  reinforce you. Whether I succeed or not makes no difference to your task.
  Is that clear?' He looked at the colonel and then at the rest of them.
  'No man of this division will retire across that river, under the penalty
  of death.'
  'Heil Hitler!' said WeizsAcker nervously. He raised his arm in the Nazi
  style salute, but no one responded.
  Was the man mad? Horner gave one of his rare smiles. 'Yes, Heil Hitler,
  Colonel Weizsdcker. And may God be with you.'

          '7ust discussing strategy'

It was the enterprising Obergefreiter Winkel who found the place for
General Horner's next Divisional Headquarters. Winkel had joined
the army expecting to be able to use the expertise with horses that
he'd learned in his father's riding stables. But, typically, the army

                384
           '7ust discussing strateg5,'

 had sent him to a panzer division, and he spent all his time driving General
 Horner's half-track command car.
  The place he found was a very large country house. It was easy to visualize
  how magnificent it must have been in Tsarist times, but it had been
  abandoned by the owners during the revolution, and since then become
  progressively more derelict. Recently artillery fire had razed most of the
  main buildings. But Winkel had discovered the cellars: huge, rambling and
  relatively dry, they provided somewhere for the whole staff to disappear.
  The only problem was disguising the telltale footmarks from the Red Army's
  reconnaissance aircraft that buzzed over whenever there was a break in the
  weather.
  Miracle upon miracle, the engineers had demolished an underground wall and
  discovered a wine cellar. The false wall must have been erec ted at the
  rear end of the wine cellar back in 19 17, to hide the finest vintages from
  the advancing Reds.
  It was Christmas, and the abstemious General Horner had given orders that
  the wine be distributed to all units for consumption in small amounts. Not
  that large amounts made much difference in this sort of weather. A drunk
  had only to raise his head above ground level, and be exposed to the
  subarctic winds, to become stone sober.
 'Happy Christmas, von Kleindorf.'
  'A Happy Christmas, Herr General.'The two men were sitting in a long,
  narrow, cobwebbed cellar on two delicate little chairs that someone had
  found in the barn. Between them was a table upon which von Kleindorf had
  arranged a dozen of the most amazing vintage wines. Some of them had
  spoiled, but the sound ones were magnificent.
  'I'm giving you the division: it is a good present.' It was an odd way to
  transfer command, sitting in a cellar drinking wine. But von Kleindorf was
  the only one he revealed himself to, and, beyond sometimes using first
  names, he didn't unbend very much with von Kleindorf. This was one of the
  penalties of command.
  'Indeed it is, Herr General.' Although he looked much older, General Horner
  was only forty-two years old. If eventually he got a promotion to go with
  his corps command he'd be one of the army's success stories.
  'And Colonel WeizsAcker comes with it,' Horner told von Kleindorf. 'All in
  all, he did reasonably well when the attack started. But I'm glad we didn't
  have to leave him too long holding the river line. If men had started
  crossing the river, the whole division would have disintegrated. You
  realize that, von Kleindorf?'

                385
         Nineteen hundred and.forty-one

 'Yes, Herr General.'
  'And in any case, in oi ir present state, you can ill afford a detached
  battle group.'
 'No, Herr General.,
  'First rifle regiment i-i overworked,' said Horner. He rummaged through
  the array of boitles, studying the wonderful labels and the venerable
  vintages. Choosing one, he drew the cork and sampled it.
  'Because they are fully motorized,' said von Kleindorf. 'It's
  inevitable.'
  'Don't wear them right down,' said Horner. 'You'll need them, and the
  combat engineers, more than ever now.' He tasted the wine and looked at
  his second in command. He would, of course, prefer to take him to Corps
  HQ but he must be given a chance at his first general command. Gettiig
  a division was the most coveted step in an officer's career.
  'There is all the paper,' von Kleinclorf reminded him dutifullv. 'Some
  of it ~ou perhaps would like to look at before you go.' He;d brought it
  back from his visit to Army HQ. It was stacked in the grey painted steel
  boxes to which the German army consigned its treasured pp.perwork.
  Special orders, supplementary orders, revisions to standing ord(-rs,
  intelligence -;ummaries, all the wastepaper with vvbich the rear echelons
  fought their war. Almost all of it had been wriuen beforc the Red Army
  launched its momentous counter-attack on December 6 and had become
  irrelevant except to the men who lived on paperwork.
  'I will!. of course recommend that von continue to command the division
  but it will not bc in my gift.' Hoi ner put his booted feet up on the
  table. He did thi~ with some difficulty, getting first one foot there,
  and then - with agonizing slowness, and awkwardness - the second.
 'I will be content to work with whoever the army sends.'
  'I know that, von Kleindorf, and I appreciate your loyalty to me and to
  the division. WNit else did you hear at Corps HQ ' ~' Horner asked.
  'Apar~ from von Bock's taking over the Fourth Armv.'
  'General hoepner has been dismissed, stripped of his rank and forbidden
  to %Near army uniform again,'
  'Hoepnergot closer toMoscow than anyone did,'said Horner. He tipped back
  on the little i hair. Von Kleindorf thought he was going to overbalance
  but he ret overed.
 'And Guderian has been cashiered.'
 'I can't believe it,' said Horner. 'This is the end of the army as we

                386
           Just discussing strategy'

 knew it,, von Kleindorf'. Eventually, we'll fight our way into Moscow,, and
 beat the Russians, because our soldiers never let us down. But the army will
 never be the same again; we have lost too much. And the Russians have got
 our measure. They know the terrain and they are prepared for the weather. We
 might sit here for weeks, even months, before we break into the city.' He
 wiped his nose. He had a cold-, he was surrounded by a desolation of snow
 and ice. His wife, Chrisi, kept writing to ask it he was safe. There was a
 patent medicine that he would dearly love to have right now - in Berlin he'd
 found it unfailingly effective against these runny noses -but could he
 seriously write and tell her he had a headcold.
  'I have never congratulated you on getting the corps, Herr General."
  'Save your congratulations until we see how long I last,' said Horner. He
  drew the cork from a famous Burgundy and tasted it. It had gone sour or
  corked or something. He spat it on the floor and selected another.
 'You saved the division, Herr General.'
  Ali, this was better. He ran it round his mouth before swallowing it. 'We
  serve in an army that does not usually reward commanders who withdraw from
  captured territory, no matter what is otherwise gained.'
  'Intelligence have now revised their enemy battle order assessment. They
  say that they are not sure bow many Red Army divisions were employed in the
  offensive of December 6. They have identified eighteen divisions the Red
  Army used. I have the latest bulletins.'
  Horner smiled. 'I saw them at close quarters back in the 1920S, when we
  were teaching them how to drive tanks. They proved apt pupils, eh
  Kleindorf?'
 'What were they like, Herr General?'
  Horner swirled the burgundy in his glass just for the pleasure of looking
  at it. 'Moody,' he said at last. 'Either they are desolate and melancholy
  and incapable of doing even the simplest thing right, or they are jubilant
  and indomitable.' Horner reached for another bottle of wine. 'So far we've
  only encountered a sad and shocked Ivan but a successful battle in front of
  Moscow could transform the whole nation into a far more formidable enemy.'
  Horner sniffed at the wine. What was this fine old medley of half-forgotten
  smells? A M6doc. His father used to let him open the wines when he was
  small. Once he'd got up out of bed in the middle of the night and went
  round the vacated dining room trying the unfinished drinks. They

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 found him in the morning, drunk and snoring. His father had been furious.
 Why did he care so much what his father thought? He'd always known that the
 estate would go to his elder brother. And yet ... Did second children always
 spend their lives looking for reassurance and approval? Was that why he'd
 joined the army, and why Pauli Winter was working for those dreadful people
 in the Ministry of' the Inturior? 'You weren't at Lichterfelde, von
 Kleindoi-O'
 'Alas, no, Herr General.'
 'It made me into a man.'
 'Indeed, Herr General '
  'I went past the old barracks a couple of years ago. There are fellows in
  black uniforms using the place nowadays: "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler", they
  call themselves.'
 'I heard the LAH wert, there,' said von Kleindorf.
 'Scoundrels,' said Ate), Horner.
  Von Kleindorf noticed that his commander was getting progressively drunk.
  He'd nt,ver seen Horner drunk and was undecided what he should do about it.
  His general had to be on his way before dawn, to take up his new command
  back at corps headquarters. He wouldn't want to do that journey with a
  hangover. And yet von Kleindorf didn't feel that he could mention his
  concerns. 'Yes, Herr General.'
  Horner went quiet and drank sonic more of the wine. 'We're facing a new
  Russki commander-, I feel it in my guts.'
  'The monitoring service heard Radio Moscow announce that Marshal Timoshenko
  has been replaced. A general named Zhukov has been named commander of their
  Central Front.'
  'Aha! :So heads roll on hoth sides of the line, von Kleindorf. Mark that,
  my lad!'
 'Yes, Herr General, I ,hall.'
  Horner belched but set med unaware that his second -in -command might have
  noticed it. 'The bridges, for instance. It's interesting, isn't it?'
  General Horner had been attacking the next bottle of wine with the
  corkscrew, but finally he gave tip and passed bottle and corkscrew to von
  Kleindorf.
 'In what wav, Herr General?'
 'They've no t bombed those damned bridges, von Kleindorf.'
  'Some strafing attack,,' said von Klcindorf, who'd narrowly missed being
  killed in one such attack.
 'I mean serious attacks - bombing raids to destroy them.'

                388
           'Just diiscussing strategy'

  'No, sir, that's true.' He passed the open bottle back to his commander.
 Homer poured the wine carefully. 'Why? Tell me why?'
 'I hadn't thought about it, General.,
  'Think about everything, old lad. Everything. Why haven't they tried to
  destroy those bridges? Because they want us to run away over them when they
  attack? No, they've enough strength to fight us, they don't have to chase
  us away. Because they hope to come through so fast that they will capture
  the bridges and not have to build their own? I don't think so. The Ivans
  are not opportunists: they work to plan. Why, then?'
 'Do you have a theory, Herr General?'
  'Suppose they attacked in a pincer movement: both pincers coming down the
  other side of the river?'
 'That would be a very big pincer movement, General.'
  'I estimate the December 6 offensive must have used about one hunctred
  divisions.'
  'One hundred divisions?' Von Kleindorf shifted in his seat. The general was
  not a man who made reckless estimations. But one hundred divisions was a
  gigantic force for the Russians suddenly to produce out of nowhere.
  Germany's momentous assault on Russia -'Barbarossa'- had used only 153
  divisions.
  'On a two-hundred-mile front. With air forces and artillery and everything
  Comrade Zhukov asked for. We do not, unfortunately, have a monopoly on
  encirclement tactics.'
 'Where would they get thern?'
  'From their eastern provinces. Divisions manning the frontiers with the
  Chinese and Japanese.'
 'That's quite a thought, Herr General.'
 'Enough for a big pincer movement, eh?'
  'Indeed, General.' Von Kleindorf looked at his chief. He didn't look drunk.
  If it wasn't for those occasional slurred words, he wouldn't have even
  guessed the general had been drinking.
  'We are to blame. The army is at fault. General Marcks, our chief of
  planning, said we could conquer Russia in nine weeks ... seventeen weeks at
  the most. I saw the report. The Soviets, it said, would not have time to
  deploy their reserves. The Ffthrer believes us when we tell him such
  things.' Horner belched.
 'Indeed he does, Herr General.'
 Horner drank more wirie, an old Burgundy this time, and handed

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 the bottle to von Kleindorf. 'Is there any news about who will become C in
 C when Brauchitsch goes?'
  'Yes, the Fdhrer,' said von Kleindorf. He pretended to drink but only let
  the wine touch his lips. He'd decided that one of them must stay sober.
 'C in C of the army, I mean.'
 'Yes, the Fiffirer has assumed that command, too.'
  Horner could hardly believe it. 'He's Head of State, Minister of War, and
  Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. And now you say the man has made
  himself commander in chief of the army too?'
  'Oh, and there was something else, General. The Americans and the Japanese
  are fighting each other. On Sunday morning, Japanese naval aircraft flying
  off carriers attacked American naval bases in the Pacific. I haven't got
  any better details, but the reports sound accurate. All the news services
  have been carrying them.'
 'So the whole world is at war,' said Homer gloomily.
  'That's right. And on Thursday the Fiffirer declared war on America, too.'
  'What?' said General Horner, spilling his drink down the brightred lapels
  of his greatcoat.
 'In a speech to the Reichstag.'
 'Declared war on the U.S. A.?'
 'Yes, it's official.'
  'Ha, ha, ha!' said General Horner. He laughed so much that he spilled his
  drink again and very nearly fell off his chair. 'Ha, ha, ha!' The tears
  came to his eyes as he laughed. 'The British are bombing our cities, and
  our armies are stretched from Africa to Norway's North Cape, and we are
  stuck in the Russian snow facing a hundred fresh divisions on this front
  alone. And the little Austrian corporal has chosen this moment to declare
  war upon the greatest industrial power in the world. Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha,
  ha!' He clutched his stomach and laughed until von Kleindorf joined in,
  too.
  They made so much noise that Obergefreiter Winkel, Horner's driver, came
  down to see if there was something wrong.
  'No, it's all right, Winkel,' said General Horner. 'The chief of staff and
  I were just discussing strategy.'

                390
           1942
           V knew you'd uvie

 The night was dark. It was February, and East Prussia was covered with its
 regular blanket of snow and ice. The German railway system, burdened by the
 ever-growing needs of the war against Russia, was showing signs of strain.
 Trains were crowded, dirty and late.
  The railway-station platform at K6nigshof was illuminated only by gas lamps
  and some of these were not working. Inge Winter rubbed condensation from
  the window, and cupped her face with her hands, to see in the darkness.
  'Is this K6nigshoP' she asked the young Stuka pilot dozing in the seat
  opposite her. He jumped to his feet and opened the window to lean out. Cold
  air, smelly with soot from the locomotive, came into the compartment.
 'Hey you!' shouted the officer. 'Is this K6nigshof?'
  'K6nigshof,' called the woman railway official obligingly. And then, just
  in case any passengers from the Berlin train wished to alight at this rural
  town, she called more loudly: 'Kbnigshof! K6nigshofl'
  Inge stood up and put on her fur coat while the young flier got her leather
  bag down from the rack and opened the door for her. He smiled and said
  goodbye reluctantly, for Inge in her mid-forties was a very attractive
  woman. She was slim, with a pate face and naturally wavy hair. But most of
  all he'd remember her for those deep, lummous grey eyes that seemed to be
  for him alone.
  Inge was cheerful and self-sufficient, almost defiant of the world about
  her. It was this wonderful confidence that so many people, such as Pauli,
  saw and admired. That was what had made Pauli want to marry her, and that
  was what made casual acquaintances, such as the Stuka pilot, her willing
  slave.
  By the time Inge had stepped down from the train, the handsome young pilot
  was forgotten. Her mind was on other things, not the

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         Nineteen hundred and forty-two

 least of which was the speech she'd be making to the!ocal RADwi -young
 women enlisted as an agricultural labour force and factory workers. This
 would Ix the biggest audience she'd ever addressed.
  She began it) pick her way between the heaps of snow. It was dark; a
  thick layer of cloud obscured moon and stars. Whistles were blowing, to
  announce the train's departure, and the signals were green. 'There were
  no porters, so she carried her own bag: she was used to it bV DOW, it was
  the war.
 'All blackout blinds clown"
  Stearn enveloped hei, and the train jolted forward, its wheels screaming
  and groaning upon the icy metals.
  She seemed to be thc only passenger getting off at this remote place.
  'The passengers were Al soldiers, or civilians on official business like
  her. There were no spare seats nowadays on the express trains. People
  stared out the windows as the train clanked past, reluctant to close the
  blackout blinds. In another hour or so these men would be in Kbnigsberg,
  East Prussia, and transferred to trains that would take them to the
  fighting front.
  She pushed her way through the heavy sprung doors and then put her bag
  down for a mgment. It was warmer inside the station building, and the air
  smelled of wartime cigarettes and unwashed human bodies. The concourse
  was crowded with people waiting for the !ocall trains. Civilian! of one
  sort or another, going back to their little towns and villagcs after a
  day's shopping. Farmers and agricultural workers from the huge estates
  that made up this part of Prussia. All of them werc prosperous nowadays,
  benefiting from the boom that had come with German's assault upon the
  U.S.S.R. 'The German army needed food, fodder and all kinds of horses,
  in everincreasing amounts. Whenever possible they favoured German
  suppliers. Sc~ here, in that part of North Germany closest to the
  fighting, the hotels and restaurants were kept full by army procurement
  officials being f&ed by those with something to sell,
  Yet it was amazing how many of these civilians had contrived to wear a
  uniform forestry ind falconry officials, brownshirts, women auxiliaries,
  Hitler Youth and part-time SS men in their forbidding black uniforra%
  Inge looked around expectantly. 'Under the clock', the message said', but
  there was no ont- there except two steely-eyed Feldgendarmerie sergeantS
  r with their metal gorgets, and two men of the railway police, Who were
  questio?ring two flashy young girls.
 She looked at her watcli. The train was late. She hated to be kept

                392
            'I knew you'd waie

 waiting, especially in public places like this. Already some of the soldiers
 sitting on a mountain of kit were appraising her and smiling invitingly. Any
 moment now those policemen would turn their attentions to her. Not because
 she might be a whore, a spy, or a fugitive, but just to pry and be
 officious. Military policemen were all bastards; Pauli had told her that and
 he knew.
  It was five minutes before a pot-bellied brownshirt came huffing and
  puffing and apologizing abjectly.
 'Frau Winter?'
  She stared at him and said nothing. The man, a red-faced fellow too old for
  the army, picked up her case and, using his free arm, pushed a way through
  the crowd. She followed him.
  In the station forecourt was a superb old Mercedes: shiny black paintwork,
  with an official pennant affixed to the front. The brownshirt opened the
  luggage compartment and put her case inside. Then he opened the door for
  her to get in.
  'Did you have a good journey?' said the man sitting in the back seat.
 'No. I bloody well did not,' said Inge. 'And you're late.'
  'I knew you'd wait,' said the man. He grinned. He liked to annoy her.
  'Go to hell,' she said. No one who knew her as the self-confident girl who
  needed nothing and no one would have recognized her now.
 The man laughed.

        'You'll regret it, mark ntv words'

 Lothar Koch knew that there was always an array of drinks in Fritz Esser's
 corner cupboard and that Pauli had a key to it. Lothar would never have
 dared to drop in and ask the deputy minister for a drink but recently, on
 his regular visits from Gestapo Headquarters, three blocks away, he'd call
 on Pauli to see if Esser was out and suggest that they have a schnapps.
 Pauli found it irritating sometimes, but he never said so. He wished Lothar
 would go. He looked out the windowAn the street below, the linden trees were
 in full leaf, and the windows were open to let in the warm, sweet-smelling
 aif.
  Today the usually melancholy Lothar was excited and outgoing, wearing a new
  suit. He stood in the middle of Fritz Esser's large office, gesticulating
  and ptilling appropriate faces. Lothar liked to go into Esser's office when
  it was unoccupied. He pretended to himself

                393
         Nineteen hundred and Jorty-two

 that he was the deputy minister. Lothar was like that. 'So the Filhrer
 went out in the street to ask passers-by what they think of Hitler. He is
 disguised with a false beard and so on.'
  'Lothar, you are quite hopeless at telling jokes,' said Pauli, whose mind
  was on the work that he should be catching up with.
  It was no use: Lothar thought he was rather good at telling stories.
  'Listen,' said Lothar. 'The Ftihrer goes up to the first fellow he sees,
  and says, "What do you think of this chap Hitler?" The man grabs the
  Fiihrer by the arm and takes him to the Tiergarten. He goes across the
  grass until they can be quite sure that there's no one in earshot. Then
  the fellow leans close to the Fiffirer and whispers, "For myself, I don't
  too much mind him!" ' Lothar cackled loudly and slapped his thigh.
 'I heard it before,' said Pauli.
  ' "I don't too much mind him!" ' said Lothar, repeating the punch line
  and smiling criough to show his gold teeth.
  'They arrested the comic at the Admiralspalast last week,' said Pauli,
  who was drinking Apoilinaris water.
 'So I heard. What was he saying? Was it funny?' Lothar asked.
  'He came on the stage and looked at the audience in silence for several
  minutes; then, when everyone was getting nervous, he'd say "Well, that's
  enough of the political discussions; now we'll tell the jokes." "
 'And for that they arrt-sted him?' said Lothar. 'That's rough.'
  'There was a group ot party leaders there with their wives after dinner.
  There were complaints. Fritz thought we ought to do something.'
 'Did he go to a camp?
 'It would never have siood up in court..' said Pauli.
  'I suppose not. It's rough, though. And he wasn't even Jewish.' Lothar
  took his glass ov(r to the cupboard, where there was a sink and a glass
  rack. He rinsed it off and put it in the rack. He never had a second
  drink Fhat was part of his training as a cop: one free drink was a
  perquisite; two was corruption.
  Suddenly, while Koch's back was turned, Pauli said, 'By the way, Lothar,
  is it true that Jcws are being systematically killed in the camps?'
  Lothar always st emed to know what was going on.
  Lothar Koch looked at him for a long time before apswering. 'Yes, it's
  true. At certain camps.'
 'Systemati( killing?'
 Again Lothar Koch paused. 'It was a top-level decision. Heydrich

                394
         'You'll regret it, mark my words'

 chaired meetings at Warmsee in January. Endl6sung - a final solution to the
 Jewish problem - it's being kept very secret. How did you hear?' Koch had
 become more composed now. He was back to being his old mournful, wary self.
  'I didn't. But I've had the lawyers from 1. G. Farben up here. They've been
  supplying one of their patent chemicals to the camps. Now there's an
  argument about it.'
 'Lawyers?'
  'Fritz had been handling it, but once Farben brought their lawyers into it
  he dumped it on me. You know what he's like.'
 'A legal opinion about chemicals?'
  'It's a poison gas: a vermin exterminator called Zyklon-B. Now, there is a
  very big order for it, but the camps want it supplied without its
  "indicator" - that's some kind of noxious smell that warns humans of its
  presence in the air. Farben won't supply it until they're sure that
  omitting the indicator won't endanger the company's rights to the patent.
  I've been in and out of the Patents Office on Gitschiner Strasse so many
  times, and read so many specifications, that I found myself wondering what
  the hell it's all about. I started wondering what the camps are doing with
  all that odourless poison gas.'
 'Why not ask Fritz Esser?'
 'I did. He laughed and told me to buy some shares in Degesch.'
 'Degesch?'
 'That's the Farben subsidiary that manufactures the stuff.'
 Lothar Koch turned away and said, 'Esser knows all about it.'
  'What do you know about it? Look at me, Lothar. What do you know about it?'
  'Not much. Except that I heard that the wife of a German officer was pushed
  into one of the death-camp trains by mistake. When she got to the other
  end, the senior officer said she must go with the others. That's how secret
  it is.'
  'Could it be true? Good God, what would she have witnessed? Is there
  killing on such a scale?'
  Lothar shrugged. 'I hear stories like that, and I know what I'm told by men
  who take prisoners to the camps. But it's better not to know too much, and
  my people don't see the extermination camps. They're too far away?'
 'Where?'
  'Always outside the borders of the Reich,' said Lothar. 'Fritz Esser
  settled all that - you must have been in on the meetings. There

                395
         Nineteen hundred andforty-two

 was a man handling it for the insurance companies. I saw him in your
 office.'
  'The insurance companies were complaining about how many tife-insurance
  policies they were paying out because of deaths in the camps.'
  'Exactly. And you told Fritz Esser that under the present law people
  emigrating from Germany lost all their civil rights. Fritz Esser told
  everyone how clever you were.'
  'I didn't know that had anything to do with killing prisoners. Fritz said
  that there were a lot of old, sick people in the camps. I thought he was
  talking about natural deaths.'
  'Well, now they make sure all these special extermination camps are outside
  the Reich. They transport them to Poland mostly. Then they die across the
  border and the insurance companies don't have to pay anyone anything.'
 'What bastards they are.'
 'The insurance companies?'
  Pauli didn't answer the question. 'Lothar, my sister-in-law is being
  released next month. What do you think will happen to her?'
  'Next month? Let's see, she's serving her sentence here in Berlin, so that
  means the women's prison in Barnimstrasse. Probably she'll be picked up at
  the prison gates by one of our people with a protective-custody order.
  That's the usual procedure nowadays.'
 'And taken to a camp?'
 'Where else?'
  'Could you find out the day and time of release, and get the number of the
  protective-custody order from Registry in PrinzAlbrecht- Strasse?'
  He offered Pauli one of his stinking little cheroots. Pauli took one.
  'Forget it, Pauli. It's too dangerous.'
  'It's very conspicuous for me to make inquiries over there, because she's
  a Winter, too. People notice I have the same name. And I'm not over there
  as much as I used to be. For you it's easy.'
  'She's an enemy alien, Pauli. Convicted of a crime against the state."
 'She's Peter's wife.'
  'Forget it, Pauli. Listen to the advice of a friend. This is not like the
  old days, when we forged signatures and got extra overtime or shuffled
  paperwork to suit ourselves. It's different now, and it's all done on
  orders from the top, Pauli. The very top. If you get yourself into this and
  upset someone, you won't get out alive.' He paused

               396
         'You'll regret it, mark my words'

 while the truth of that got into Pauli's head. 'You haven't seen what
 happens at the other end of all this paperwork. It gets very rough. I'm
 serious.'
  Pauli seemed not to have heard his urgent warning. 'Just type it on one of
  my daily sheets: prison, date and time. Then delete the custody order on
  the register. If I go in there they'll wonder why, but you're in and out of
  Registry every day. Okay?'
 'No, it's not okay.'
 'Please Lothar.'
  Lothar Koch lit his cheroot and blew some smoke before responding to
  Pauli's plea. 'You've got this nice office on Unter den Linden. You don't
  come over to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse so much these days, Pauli. And when you
  do come, you go up to the third floor and smoke a nice cigar with one of
  the top brass and look out at the gardens and talk about the finer points
  of the law. Let me take you down to the basement sometime.'
  'What's in the basement?' said Pauli. He sank down into the soft leather
  chair that Fritz kept for visitors.
 'You know what's in the basement as well as I do.'
 'I've never been in the basement.'
  'No, you make sure you keep your hands clean. You stay over here in the
  Interior Ministry, where the basement is full of archives and the only
  thing that happens to people in the basement is that they get their hands
  dusty. In Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse they have rooms in that basement where
  they torture prisoners when you, or people like you, are in a hurry for a
  statement. It's not pretty down there, Pauli. A lot of prisoners don't
  survive that sort of interrogation. I stay clear as much as I can, so I
  don't blame you for doing the same, but don't look me in the eye and say
  you don't know what goes on. And I'm not going to get a protective-custody
  order so that you can tear it into shreds and hope it all goes unnoticed
  when your sister-in-law Mrs Winter isn't delivered to Oranienburg at the
  stated date.'
 'I'm sorry, Lothar. I shouldn't have asked.'
  Pauli's soft apology made Lothar Koch feel ashamed of letting his friend
  down. 'I might be able to get the order and the delivery sheet, but I can't
  delete anything in Registry. Falsifying such a document in wartime is
  probably treason. People are being executed for that kind of thing, Pauli.
  Plenty of them.' He smiled nervously. 'Better that she gets into trouble in
  prison and gets her sentence extended. Tell her to hit a prison guard; it's
  common enough nowadays, when people guess that they'll be picked up at the
  gates and taken to a

                397
         Nineteen hundred and forty-twn

 concentration camp. Hit a prison guard, that's the best thing for her to
 do.'
  'Get the order and the delivery sheet. What will it say - Mrs Winter, Jew,
  non-German by race and nationality?'
  'I don't know what the hell you're up to Pauli, and I don't want to know
  anything about it. When your Mrs Winter doesn't arrive at the Oranienburg
  camp on time they will raise hell. Believe me, I know what they're like.
  You can't get away with releasing a prisoner.'
 'Thanks, Lothar.'
 'You'll regret it, mark my words.'

        'Couldn't Inge work in Berlin?'

 Pauli loved his father and his mother, he loved them with an his heart, and
 yet he had never been able to convey this to them. Now that his father was
 not well, he visited them almost every day, but still h~ wasn't able to
 voice his innermost thought.
  This Sunday afternoon in early June he'd taken his oldest friend, Alex
  Horner, there to tea. Horner was in the magnificent uniform that the German
  army has traditionally provided to its generals. His collar had the patches
  that only generals wear, and his trousers bore the coveted wide red stripe.
  But General Homer had paid a grim price for his rank, his authority and his
  medals. Alex Homer's service on the Russian Front had aged him beyond his
  years.
  Pauli sat beside his friend, and opposite them sat Harald Winter. Pauli's
  father had had his favourite armchair brought into the drawing room and,
  despite the bright sunshine that fell across the carpel: on this wonderful
  June afternoon, he sat there swaddled in blankets. The chintz-covered wing
  armchair looked incongruous amid the jazzy chrome Bauhaus furniture,
  mirrors with shiny blacklacquered frames, and on the wall not paintings but
  old advertisement posters, one of them for the Graf Zeppelin's service to
  South America.
  Harald Winter was too stubborn to obey his doctor's orders and remain in
  bed. He was only seventy-two, he kept reminding the doctors, not extreme
  old age. In these days of modern medicine, seventy-two was no more than
  advanced middle age.
  'Your Field Marshal G6ring made the greatest mistake of his life when he
  destroyed the airships in 1940,' said Harald Winter, noticing his younger
  son looking at the zeppelin poster on the wall.

                398
         'Couldn't Inge work in Berlin?'

  Pauli noted that G6ring was his field marshal, a sure sign that the old man
  was feeling argumentative. Perhaps that was a good sign. Perhaps he was on
  the mend. 'The Luftwaffe needed the aluminium alloy,' said Pauli.
  'Ha!' said his father. 'My factories were supplying the aircraft
  manufacturers with more than they could use until the Air Ministry
  appointed all those tame Nazis to the boards.'
 'That was the reason given,'said Pauli, who didn't care either way.
  'G6ring couldn't make the Zeppelin companies dance to his tune; that's the
  truth of it, and good for them! G6ring's the worst possible man for that
  job. That fat clown is still living up in the clouds, flying his Fokker
  Triplane in igi8.'
  'You're right,' said Pauli. His father hated G6ring. This aversion had come
  from dealing with the incompetent bureaucrats in G6ring's vast Air
  Ministry, which now filled a whole city block in Wilhelmstrasse - ten times
  the size of the other ministry buildings.
 'Rouge and powder on his face, and painted fingernails.'
  'I know,'said Pauli. He glanced at his friend Alex but didn't smile in case
  his father saw it.
 'Disgusting!' said his father.
  'It's better not to talk about it,' said Pauli, who knew that people were
  in prison for saying less than that.
 'Better for whom?'
  'Better for you,' said Pauli. 'We're at war, Papa. Such talk can be
  misconstrued as treason.'
  His father said, 'And a thousand RAF bombers attacked Cologne last Sunday.
  It's terrible, they say. Ask Gdring about that!'
  'Thirty-seven British planes were shot down,' said Pauli, who'd had an
  internal SD memo saying the raid had caused 'serious fear' among German
  civilians.
  'Rouge and powder. It's disgusting, disgusting!' said his father again,
  like a petulant child who'd been told not to swear. 'And this fat fool
  likes to be called the Iron Man.' He gave another little laugh and repeated
  it: 'Der Eiserne!'
  Veronica Winter returned from the kitchen, carrying a large silver tray
  upon which were cups and saucers, cakes and tea. 'Let me take that, Mama,'
  said Pauli, jumping to his feet. He was shocked to see his mother engaged
  in such domestic chores. 'Where are the servants?'
  Veronica didn't give Pauli the tray. No matter that he was now a
  middle-aged man - Veronica still thought of him as the awkward,

                399
         Nineteen hundred and forty-two

 clumsy child who had dropped and broken her precious china. She said, 'The
 parlourmaid's fianc6 is home on leave from the Eastern Front. I had to give
 her the time off. And the young one is sick, and Cook is at the market
 lining up for things off-ration. I can't ask Hauser to work in the kitchen
 - it would be like telling him to take orders fram Cook. Servants are so
 touchy. And it's not easy to get staff nowadays. Girls prefer to go into
 factories; I don't understand why.Thank you, Pauli dear. Put the flowers on
 the side table - it will make more room. That's better. Give Alex a cup and
 I'll pour.'
  'But, Mama, you mustn't do housework. I never let Inge fetch and carry.
  'Lucky Inge,' said Veronica, pouring tea. 'It's very weak, I'm afraid. Do
  you know, I was having tea with Baronin Munte last week, and she had
  lemons. A relative had brought them from Greece or somewhere. I'd almost
  forgotten what a lemon tasted like. Do you get lemons in Russia, Alex?'
 'No, Frau Winter, we don't.'
  'The tea we get on the ration is not real tea, it's herbal-leaf tea, and it
  doesn't taste of anything much without lemon. I've started putting milk in
  again, the way they do in England.'
  'You could have Ostarbeiter working in the house. There are lots of them
  now,' said Pauli
  Veronica said, 'Your father won't have Polish people in the house; he says
  they smell.'
  'It's nonsense,' said Pauli. He looked at his father and said it again.
  'Nonsense!'
  'I know it is, dear,' said his mother, 'but I can't go against your
  father's wishes.' In fact, Veronica Winter had decided that she couldn't
  have a Polish girl in the house because it would make her uneasy. Now that
  the United States was fighting against Germany, the Poles were defacto
  alges. It wouldn't be right to have a Polish girl assigned there, working
  for little or no pay like a slave. Technically Veronica was German now, but
  she remained American enough to believe that labour must be hired for a
  negotiated wage. She changed the subject: 'Is Inge back yet?'
 'She'll be back on Sunday night,' said Pauli.
 'She's away a lot lately.'
  'She hates the travelling, but she insisted upon doing something to help
  with the war effort.'
  'I don't know exactly what she does,' said Veronica. She went to the window
  and closed it, despite the heat. There was so much noise

                400
         'Couldn't Inge work in Berlin?'

 from the street nowadays: cars, trucks, horses, marching men. It was a
 pandemonium.
  'It's a party job. She works for the central office of the League of
  German Girls and coordinates their work with other women's
  organizations.'
  'Wouldn't it be better if she stayed at home and looked after you,
  Pauli?' his mother asked.
  'We all have to do something for the war, Mama, and we have no children.
  Inge wanted to do it.'
  'But the travelling ... Silesia, the Rhineland ... Couldn't Inge work in
  Berlin?'
  It was impossible to explain such things to his parents. They remained
  relatively unaffected by the war, except for the hardships of rationing
  and a bomb now and again. And his mother was always delighted by a chance
  to criticize poor Inge. 'Fritz explained all that, Mama. Though there was
  a job in Berlin available, it wouldn't have been suited to someone with
  an education like Inge's. I miss her when she's away, but it won't be
  forever.'
  Veronica turned to their visitor and said, 'What about your little son,
  Alex? How old is he now?'
 'Our Christian will be four years old on Saturday.'
  'Is it four years?' said Pauli. He knew that Alex was remembering the day
  he'd waited for him in the stables at Bernau. How could he ever have
  expected Alex to warn Fritsch? What a stupid idea it had been to try to
  do anything to stop it all from happening. Now he knew better. Now he
  kept out of trouble ... or at least he tried to.
  'How wonderful that you are on leave. Your wife is surely delighted. You
  must bring her along to see us before your leave is up. Did you specially
  arrange to come home for the little one's birthday, General Horner?' said
  Veronica rather archly.
  'Don't be silly, Mama. I told you, Alex is here for the state funeral on
  Tuesday.'
 'The funeral of Heydrich, the SS leader. Of course.'
  'Alex is an official representative of the Wehrmacht,' said Pauli
  proudly.
  If Alex Homer imagined that the eccentricities of Harald Winter were
  those of a senile man, he was now to think differently. Winter leaned
  forward and said, 'What happened to Heydrich, then?'
  'He was shot, Herr Winter,' said Alex, who felt no sense of loss at the
  death of the SS leader.
 'I know that, Alex, I'm not in my dotage. Who shot him and why?'

                401
         Nineteen hundred andforty-two

  'It's a bit early to be sure, Herr Winter, but the Abwehr say the assassins
  were Czechs, dropped by parachute.'
 'So the newspapers have got it right. From Russia?'
  'No. Not from Russia. The Soviets do not have the right men or the right
  aircraft for such an operation.'
 'From England, then?'
  'Yes, London. They think the Czechoslovak govern ment in exile under Eduard
  Bene was getting worried about Heydrich's popularity.'
  'I thought he went there to crush all resistance,' said Harald Winter.
  'At first he took the stick to them,' said Pauli. 'But after he'd rooted
  out the troublemakers, he reorganized the social-security system for Czech
  workers and peasants. Heydrich became remarkably popular. There is no
  terrorism against us in Bohemia and Moravia.'
  'There will be now,'said Alex Horner dolefully. 'There's bound to be a
  crackdown, and that's just what the British want.'
  'It's started already,' said Pauli. 'They've rounded up thousands of
  Czechs, and hundreds have been shot.'
 'How dreadful,' said Veronica.
  'It's the way war is,' said Harald Winter. 'Am I right, General Horner?'
  'I'm afraid so, Herr Winter. We lose a lot of soldiers killed by the
  Russian partisans. In the rear areas there are special SS units that do
  nothing but fight the guerrillas. It's a messy, bloody, repugnant business,
  and not the sort of war the army wants, I assure you.'
  'When do you return to the Eastern Front, General Horner?' said Harald
  Winter.
 'I am to be reassigned,' he said.
  'I do hope you stay in Berlin,' said Veronica. 'Children grow up so
  quickly.'
  'Mama had a letter from Peter,' Pauli told his friend. 'Did I tell you?'
 'Yes, but is it possible?' said Alex. 'He's in the U.S.A., isn't he?'
  'There is a mail service to enemy countries through a mailbox in Lisbon,'
  said Veronica. She put her teacup on the glass-topped table and produced
  the letter from her handbag, took it from the envelope, and unfolded it
  carefully. It was fragile now, for she'd read it over and over again, and
  kept it like a lucky piece. 'It takes ages. I suppose

                402
         'Couldn't Inge work in Berlin?'

 everything has to be checked for invisible inks and codes and so on. But it
 was wonderful to hear from him. Can you read English, Alex?'
 'I'm afraid not, Frau Winter.'
  'Then there is no point in showing you.' She was grateful for an excuse to
  read the letter yet again. She spread it on her knees and bent over it.
  Peter's small, Deat writing was unmistakable; across the page there was a
  yellow diagonal stripe of some chemical that would detect secret inks. 'He
  says only that he is well and that little Helena is at school in
  California. He saw his grandfather, who is ninety-one years old-, isn't
  that remarkable?'
  'There you are,' said Harald Winter. 'People live longer nowadays. We eat
  better food and take care of ourselves.'
  Veronica paused long enough to be sure that her husband had finished and
  then went on about Peter. 'He says he plays the piano a lot and has a job
  with a film company. It's all very general, of course. I suppose he was
  afraid the censor's office would intercept it and stop it from getting
  through if he said anything specific. He asks us to look after his wife,
  Lottie. She's in prison, you know.' Veronica looked up.
  'Yes, I know,' said Alex I lorner. She looked at him; he looked so much
  older than Pauli, his contemporary. From what she'd heard about Russia,
  nothing could be worse than fighting there, except perhaps sending other
  young fellows off to do so. What terrible stroke of fate had sent this poor
  man - and the rest of his generation -twice into the slaughteryards of
  world war?
  'But the prison authorities haven't answered my letters, so I can't find
  out when she's to be released.'
  'Leave it with me, Mama,' Pauli told her. 'I told you to leave it with me.'
 'But if we don't know
 'I'll see to it.'
 'Now, don't get yourself into trouble, Pauli,' said Veronica.
 'Don't fuss, Mama.'
 'Pauli is such a darling,' Veronica told General Alex Horner.

       Teople need chee7ing up these days'

The big house off Kant Strasse was not the glittering showplace it
had been when Frau Wisliceny's 'salons' attracted the greatest
artists, musicians, writers and intellectuals of the city. With

                403
         Nineteen hundred and forty-two

 America's entry into the war, and the departure of the Latin American
 diplomats, too, Berlin's sparkling social life guttered and died. Even here
 in the heart of the capital the war had brought drab austerity.
  Professor Wislicenv had died, but the Hennigs remained in the house. Inge
  had not pressed them to sell it, for such Berlin properties were fetching
  very poor prices nowadays. Berliners were dispersed across the world
  battlefronts. Some people were moving out of the city to avoid the air
  raids that they said would inevitably come to Berlin next winter, and those
  who nowadays crowded Berlin's streets didn't buv houses.
  Even if Erich Hennig had still been earning his fat performance fees, it
  would have been difficult to keep up the interior. Ordinary items, such as
  paint, were in short supply, and the craftsmen who might have redone the
  beautiful ceilings, cleaned the carpets, or repaired the valuable
  chandeliers were all in the army or in the war factories.
  Besides, Erich Hennig was not earning any performance fees at present. He
  had trouble with his arm. He couldn't lift it above his head, and the wrist
  sometimes pained him. The doctor was optimistic, advising rest, a set of
  exercises that took two hours, hot baths containing some foul-smelling
  crystals, and a noxious ointment that had to be rubbed into his arm muscles
  every night before bed.
  'In six months - perhaps less - Erich will be fit and well again,'said
  Lisl. "It's good for him to have a rest. It was going round the war
  factories that started his trouble. Sleeping in damp sheets - that's what
  .1 think it was.'
  'Do you still practise, Erich?' Pauli asked him. They were sitting round
  the scrubbed kitchen table after one of Lisl's Eintopf dinners. The big
  dining room next door was dark. Pauli wondered if he'd ever again see it
  the way it had been for Frau Wisliceny's formal dinner parties.
 'Every day without fail,' said Erich I lennig.
  'And he's teaching our little Theo to play,' said Lisl proudly. 'Erich says
  he has real talent.'
  'That's wonderful,' said Pauli. He liked the Hennigs' twelveyear-old son
  and had become a beloved uncle.
  'Erich could give a recital, but the doctor says it would be bad for the
  arm.'

               404
        'People need cheering up these days'

  'I'm not sure I could,' said Erich, 'unless it was of short pieces. I
  couldn't manage a long work.'
  'Erich was in Warsaw,' said Lisl proudly. 'Six concerts for the soldiers.
  He met General Steflea, the Rumanian chief of staff.'
 'How wonderful,' said Pauli, who had never heard of the fellow.
  'And all the top field marshals and generals,' added Lisl when she saw that
  her brother-in-law wasn't very impressed.
  Pauli pushed his plate away. Clearing a space on the table before saying
  something important was a mannerism he'd had since childhood. 'I hear
  you've converted the top floor into an apartment,' he said.
  'Now, wait a moment, Pauli,' said Erich defensively. 'It's just until I'm
  back at work again.'
  'It's not for the rent,' said Lisl. 'I needed someone living in, now that
  Erich has to have someone to look after him.'
  'I haven't come to ask you for a share of the rent money,' said Pauli. 'I
  want you to find a bed for someone. I'll pay you if you wish.'
 'It wouldn't be possible,' said Erich hastily.
  'Of course it would,'said Pauli. He drank the water in his glass and
  reached for the jug to pour more.
  'Won't you have a glass of wine?' said Erich. As he was pouring some for
  himself, his hand shook.
 'I don't drink,' said Pauli
  'I wish Erich wouldn't drink,' said Lisl. 'The doctor said it's not good
  for him.'
  'The doctor knows nothing,' said Erich bitterly. 'He doesn't even know
  what's wrong with me.'
  'The apartment is occupied,' said Lisl. She looked at Erich and then Erich
  looked away and drank his wine.
  'They'll have to move out,' said Pauli. He was determined to have the
  matter settled the way he wanted it, and his tone of voice revealed that
  determination.
  'They can't move out,' said Lisl. 'They are refugees - they have no proper
  papers and nowhere to go.'
 'Ostarbeiter?' said Pauli.
  'Dr Volkmann and the Frau Doktor are living up there,' said Lisl, blurting
  it out defiantly. And yet Pauli didn't miss the fear in her voice. He was
  the Gestapo man to them, and to many other people, too. People were
  frightened of him. No matter how he tried to reassure them, it was no good.
 'Volkmann? The dentist?'

                405
         Nineteen hundred and forty-two

  It was Lisl who spoke. Her husband kept a discreet silence. Erich had
  never b-en noted for his heroism. After the zeppelin crash, Erich Hennig
  had run for his life. He'd run nearly two kilometres before failing into
  a ditch and breaking his ankle. But Lisl had mettle enough for both of
  them. Defiantly she said, 'They had nowhere to go. Men went to arrest
  them, but they weren't at home. The girl who worked for them ran to his
  surgery to warn him and they never went home again.'
  'I didn't know about that,' said Pauli. 'I started going to another
  dentist a long time ago. I lost touch.'
  'If we put them out on the street they'll he picked up. Is that what you
  want?' Lisl asked
  'Whatever made you take the Volkmanns in?' Pauli asked, still trying to
  get used to the idea.
  'He was always so kind and patient with Papa,' said Lisl. 'I couldn't say
  no to them.'
  What an amazing reason for putting yourself in jeopardy, thought Pauli,
  but he wasn't surprised. Most such reckless courses were started upon for
  small personal reasons rather than for moral or political ones. His timc
  with the Gestapo had demonstrated that over and over again. 'Do they
  never go out?' said Pauli.
  'Dr Volkmann goes to work at the Jewish cemetery at Weissensee,' said
  Erich. 'He says he's safe there. Is that true, Pauli?'
  'Yes, he's safe. They certainly won't allow Aryans to dig graves for
  Jews, so as long as there are Jews to be buried they'll let the Jewish
  cemetery-workers and undertakers continue in safety.'
 'Frau Volkmann helps me in the house,' said Lisl.
  'Working in the house? Cooking and washing, Fran Volkmann?' said Pauli.
  She'd been so delicate and ladylike.
  'Things change,' said Erich, having decided that Pauli was not going to
  report them for harbouring the Volkmanns. He didn't look at them. He was
  getting very drunk.
  'They'll have to make room for another person,' said Pauli. 'Lottie is
  coming out of prison. She'll have to be hidden.'
 'Lottie is coming out?' It was Lisl's turn to be surprised.
  Pauli nodded. 'I have to find somewhere she can hide. I didn't know about
  the Volkmanns, but perhaps that makes it easier for everyone.'
  Erich was still staring at nothing in particular and sipping his wine.
  Eventually Lisl said, 'And Peter is still in America?'

                4o6
        'People need cheenng up these days'

  'Yes, Mama had a letter. It was posted months ago, but it got through. She
  was very excited.'
 Poor Peter,' said Lisl. 'I suppose he worries about Lottie.'
 She'll be all right if you let her stay with the Volkmanns.'
 :They haven't got much room up there, Pauli.'
  They'll have to manage,' said Pauh. 'It's better than being in a camp,
  isn't it?'
  'What about rations?' said Lisl. 'It's difficult enough with the
  Volkmanns.'
  'I'll see what I can do about that. I know someone who works in the
  department that deals with rationing. We might get some emergency cards,
  like they give to air-raid evacuees. It would help out.'
  'And I'll need some extni blankets,' said Lisl. 'It's all right for the
  time being, while the weather is warm, but it gets cold at the top of the
  house in winter, and we can't keep the heating on all the time.'
   have lots of blankets,' said Pauli. 'And sheets and things, too.
 talk to Inge when she gets back.'
 :You're going to tell Inge, then?' said Lisl.
 Of course I am. Why not?'
  'We never told her about the Volkmanns,' said Lisl. 'She's my own sister,
  but she can be unpredictable about this sort of thing.'
 What sort of thing?' said Pauli.
  The regime,' answered Lisl without hesitation. 'Inge won't hear a word said
  against the regime; you must know that, Pauli. I told her a joke once, a
  silly joke about the Fdhrer.... She flared up and gave me a lecture about
  the war effort. For a moment I thought she was going down to the People's
  Court to report me!'Lisl laughed. It was a joke, of course: she didn't
  really think her sister would report her to the notorious Volksgericht.
  'I'll talk to Inge when she gets back,' said Pauli, although in the back of
  his mind was the notion that it might be better not to talk to her.
  'What I'd really like to do,' said Lisl, leaning forward as if to
  demonstrate her earnestness, 'is to start a tea room.'
 'Not again,' said Erich, without turning to look at them.
 Tea room?' said Pauli.
  It would be perfect. We're only a step away from Kant Strasse and not far
  from Ku-damm. It wouldn't cost much to make it look really grand.'
 'A tea roorn?' said Pauli again. 'Here?'
 'Downstairs.'

                407
         Nineteen hundred and foM-nw

  His back still turned to them, Erich said, 'Not being far from Kudamm won't
  help. People don't stroll past here the way they stroll on the Ku-damm.'
  Pauli realized that his presence was providing them with an excuse to argue
  through him. It was a device that married couples sometimes resorted to; he
  remembered doing the same sort of thing himself at times.
  'They would come if it was a nice place. There are so many people walking
  about aimlessly - soldiers and their girls, war workers on vacation and
  foreigners. A tea room wouldn't be much work: afternoons and early
  evenings. And I'd use the two downstairs rooms that we never go into now.
  I'd enjoy doing it, Pauli, and it might bring in some money.'
  Erich turned round to face them again. He'd finished the wine in his glass
  and now he poured himself more. It was French wine, Pauli noticed. The
  Hennigs might have been short of money, but they lived well nevertheless.
  'What will people say when it gets round that Erich Hermig the concert
  pianist is running a tea room?' he said.
  'Be reasonable, Erich darling,' Lisl said. 'You won't let me take a job,
  and a little extra money would solve all our problems.'
  'You'd need a licence,' said Erich. He was bent very low over the table, so
  that he only had to lift the glass a tiny way to his lips.
 'Leave all that to me,' she said. 'Will you let me try, Erich?'
 He pulled a face. 'The rooms downstairs are in a terrible mess.'
  'The Volkmarms would help me. Dr Volkmann is good at decorating, and Lily
  will help me clear it all up.'
  Erich Hennig was softening. 'You mustn't put the best furniture in there.
  Certainly not those valuable dining-room chairs.'
  'Do you think I'm stupid, Erich darling? Of course I won't put the
  dining-room chairs in there - they were Mother's dearest possession. I can
  rent or borrow what I need. Or there are places where they sell furniture
  from places damaged in the air raids. Some of it is very good-'
 'Where will you put that old upright piano?'
  'I thought of leaving it there, Erich. If things went well, I might get a
  pianist, or even a trio, to play. People need cheering up these days.'
 'What do you think, Pauli?' Erich asked.
  'It's worth a try,' said Pauli. 'I'll bring Fritz Esser along. If he
  started bringing his girlfriends here, you'd become famous.'
 'I don't want Fritz Esser and his girlfriends,' said Lisl. 'It's not

                4o8
        'People need cheering up these days'

 going to be that sort of place.'Though she smiled enough to make it a joke,
 there was an underlying sincerity in her voice. Pauli wondered what she
 meant, but he didn't ask.

        'You're an old man notv, Peter'

 'You look the part, Peter,' Glenn Rensselaer told him as they walked along
 Baker Street, London. Rensselaer, sixty-two years old, wore a well-cut
 English herringbone-weave three-piece suit, a brown felt hat and brogues.
 There were crowds on the street, mostly in uniform of some kind or other:
 Women's Royal Naval Service officers with their schoolgirl -style brimmed
 hats, bearded Norwegians, Australian airmen in their special dark blue,
 Canadians with their green-tinted khaki, Polish officers in their spiky caps
 and, looking in the shopwindows, pretty girls in fur coats, who always
 lingered where the soldiers passed.
  'I feel like a fraud,' said Peter Winter, who was dressed as a colonel of
  the U.S. Army. 'And everyone treats me like a fraud. Or at least the
  Americans do.' They stopped, waiting for a break in the traffic before they
  crossed the road.
  'It's your accent,' said Glenn. 'If you spoke stumbling English with a
  heavy German accent you'd be immediately accepted. Army intelligence, as
  you well know, is filled with German emigrants. But you speak excellent
  English with a very British accent. That's darned difficult for a GI to
  reconcile with an American colonel's uniform.'
  'I'll have to take elocution lessons,' said Peter. 'And why don't you wear
  a uniform? Tell me that, Uncle Glenn.' There was a break between a red
  double-decker bus and a transporter lumbering under the weight of a Matilda
  tank, and the two men dashed across the road, narrowly avoiding a woman
  despatch rider on a powerful motorcycle.
  'Cut out the "Uncle", will you Peter. Uniform? Well, I learned my lesson
  about uniforms back in the old days. If we sent a lieutenant to a meeting,
  the British sent a captain, and so on and so on. Finally I decided to drop
  my honorary rank and revert to civilian. That way the British don't know
  how much authority I have, and I don't get brass hats breathing down my
  neck.'
 'I wish you'd told me,' said Peter.
  'You'll be all right, Colonel. You've got ine to back you up: I've got no
  one to back me up.'

                409
         Nineteen hundred and forty-two

 'I thought you were the big boss.'
  'Yes, but I'm the boss of nothing. For the time being we are the poor
  relations here. We have to use RAF planes to drop our agents, and that
  means we have to line up, cap in hand, along with the Free French, the
  Poles, the Czechs, the Dutch and all the governments in exile.'
 'Why don't we use American planes?' Peter asked.
  'Hallelujah! Walking into that RAF group captain's office and telling that
  toffee-nosed SOB what he can do with his airplanes is a pleasure I'm much
  looking forward to. But the RAF are flying over Germany every night. They
  have all kinds of magic boxes, so they can find a map reference and put an
  agent down right where he must be. Our flyboys are trained to fly in
  daylight. And they fly in formation, which means only the formation leader
  has to know where he is - and even then he can use the maps to help him
  find his way. No, Peter, agents have to be dropped in the dark, and for the
  time being that puts us into the hands ofthe British, including that
  pretentious goldbrick we just talked with.'
  They came to a small, rather smart block of flats, its windows covered with
  the sticky net cloth that was supposed to prevent glass from flying when
  bombs exploded. They went up the short flight of steps - each bearing a
  strip of new white paint to help in the blackedout streets - and pushed
  open the doors. From outside, the building looked like many of the other
  small blocks of expensive apartments in Saint Marylebone, London, but like
  most of the others this one had been taken over for official use. Inside
  the door were two armed U.S. military policemen in white webbing belts and
  white gaiters. One of them was sitting with his feet up on a chair
  listening to the radio playing 'I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire'. He
  jumped to his feet and saluted, then turned the radio down, looked at their
  identification cards, and got them to sign the book.
 'How are you doing, Sergeant?' asked Glenn amiably.
 'Not bad, Mr Rensselaer,' said the cop. 'Not bad at all.'
  'We won't wait for the elevator,' said Glenn. 'It's only two floors up.' As
  they started up the stairs, 'I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire' got
  suddenly louder.
  They passed through a room where three large metal Type H containers were
  being packed with guns, radios and rations before being parachuted into
  occupied Europe. They walked down a narrow corridor to a door marked 'G.
  Rensselaer. Operations Staff

                410
         'You're an old man now, Peter'

 Only'. Once inside Glenn's poky little office, they sat down. Peter looked
 out the window onto Seymour Place.
 'Want a drink? Coffee? Tea?' Glenn asked.
  'No thanks. It's exciting to be in London again. And to be here! It's odd
  to think that we're only round the corner from Grandfather's house,' said
  Peter. His hair was no longer cut very short, but he was still tanned from
  the California sun. They'd flown him over the Atlantic. That was a measure
  of high importance in these days of priorities.
  'Yes, this section of town has been chosen by most of the exiled
  governments,' said Glenn. 'I guess they want to stick close to the British
  Special Operations Executive in Baker Street.'
 'How much do the British know?' asked Peter.
  'Officially they know nothing. The deal we made with them is the same as
  that made by the others. The Dutch and the French don't want to reveal
  anything about the men they ask the RAF to drop into Europe, and we have
  the same arrangement. But the British are not stupid. They know that we
  have no underground movement over there, the way the French and the
  Belgians and the Dutch do. So they must guess that we are parachuting in
  German Americans for our own purposes. Tomon ow you'll meet a man named
  Piper - Sir Alan now, they gave him a knighthood last year - he's one of
  the top British intelligence people. You met him once. I brought him to
  Travemimcle back when your grandmother was still alive. It was the year you
  had the sailing accident that made your mother go grey.'
 'Mama, go grey?'
 'Sure, you must have noticed that.'
 'No, I never did. Is that the man Mama I-ell in love with?'
 'So you knew about that?'
  'Not at the time. Pauli told me many years later. I can't clearly remember
  him, except that he was tall and spoke German with a funny accent.'
  'That's the guy. He fell for your mother. I would never have taken him
  there if I'd guessed what was going to happen.'
 'Did it affect Mama so much?'
  'I don't know. I was thinking of Piper. You know, he still has a photo of
  your mother in a frame.'
 'After all this time?'
  'It's together with other pictures of friends and acquaintances, but I know
  him well enough to know
 'And you approve?'

               411
         Nineteen hundred and fort~-two

 'Don't be such a
 'A stuffed shirt?'
  'Right. Don't be a stuffed shirt, Peter. Boy Piper loved Veronica, and
  maybe it would have been better if she'd gone off with him.'
  'Is that what you told her?' There was a note of displeasure in Peter's
  voice.
  'She's your mother, but she's my sister,' said Glenn doggedly. 'Maybe you
  should remember that. And Boy never married.'
 'And he's a friend of yours.'
  'He's a good guy. You'll see that. There are plenty of wrongos in this
  town, but when the British get it right, they get it really right.'
 'I'll look forward to meeting him,' said Peter.
  'Well, don't upset him. just about everything we have right now, from
  thumbtacks to parachute training, is because of Boy Piper's say-so.'
 'I won't upset him.'
  To change the subject Glenn said, 'How are your guys coming along?'
  'One of them will never be good enough, but the best three are ready. I
  can't teach them anything more. What are their chances, Glenn? Of getting
  back, I mean.'
  'I wouldn't start thinking like that, Peter. You can't play God. These guys
  are all volunteers. They want to do something for the war, and this is the
  job they're best suited to do. Some of them have lost relatives - all of
  them have stories to tell.'
 'They don't talk much.'
  'That's good, but we're going to have to tighten it up even more. The next
  batch will be known only as code names, and they'll be confined to quarters
  from the time they arrive, in case we get another rumpus like the guy who
  got drunk in the pub and started telling the barmaid his life story. We
  can't risk that - it's too dangerous for the others. And by the end of the
  month the British have promised us better quarters. I want a place out in
  the sticks with a lot of space around it, somewhere we can build our own
  training course, complete with primary parachute training - just a tower
  and a rail to give them the idea. That would shorten the time at
  Manchester. The less time our guys spend with foreigners the better.'
 'I suppose so.'
  'Last month we had a guy beaten to a hamburger by a couple of Poles. 'They
  figured he was a German, and that was enough for them to start taking him
  apart. What could the poor kid do? We'd told all

                412
         'You're an old man now, Peter'

 our people they were for the high jump if they told anyone who they really
 were.'
 I didn't hear about that.'
  'Damn right you didn't. One rumpus like that could wreck our whole
  programme. Suppose a newspaper man got a whiff of it. This lousy town is
  filled with rt-porters hungry for stories.'
 'I wish I could go,' said Peter.
  'Are you crazy? You're an old man now, Peter. You'd never get through the
  physical, let alone the training. You leave this tough-guy stuff to the
  youngsters.'
 'One of'my people is forty years old.'
  'Miffler. Sure, but he's a special case. I can't train one of these kids to
  be a Bavarian chemist - it takes years to learn enough chemistry. So I have
  to take a chemist - Miffler - and use him.'
 'Miffler's German is Berlin German, and Mftller .
  'And MUller is Jewish and looks Jewish. Yeah, I know. I've been through
  this a dozen times with people from Washington. He's not exactly a perfect
  choice but he might make out.'
  'I don't think he will. He's been away too long. His German is dated and he
  forgets things.'
 'Did MUller give any sign of not wanting to go?'
 'None at all, he's very keen.'
 'Then he'll go.'
 'But, Glenn . . .'
  'Look, Peter. Md1ler saw his parents killed. I don't want to go into it,
  because it's Miffler's personal business, and it's against standing orders
  to reveal an agent's background. But this is MWIer's war. He knows the
  risks and he still wants to go. That's great with me. I need him and I'm
  fixing for him to go as soon as the nights get long enough.'
  'Miffler wants to go because he's been told that the office failed to find
  any other person with his qualifications.'
  'Don't lecture me, Peter; I've got a hundred Mfillers on my hands. I can't
  start worrying about them. And you can't, either.'
 'I'm just saying that if Millier is suitable, I'm suitable, too.'
  'Jesus, Peter, you're forty-six years old and you wear eyeglasses and
  you're out of shape. If we get a sudden strategic need to drop an agent
  with a degree in company law and a talent for boogie-woogie piano, I'll
  keep you in mind. Meanwhile, Colonel Winter, just keep to your assignment.'
 'Yes, sir,' said Peter, but he was offended. He thought that his

                413
         Nineteen hundred and forty-two

uncle was not giving proper attention to the fact that Lottie was in
Berlin somewhere and that there was no news of her. In fact, Glenn
Rensselaer worried about Lottie and Veronica as much as Peter did.

 414
            IL943
           'Happy and vicwrious'

 January 1, 1943. It was a celebration for Pauli's forty-third birthday. His
 parents were there. Alex Homer was there, and so was Fritz Esser. Inge had
 saved up enough ration coupons to make a wonderful cake, and Harald Winter
 allowed them to have a couple of bottles of French champagne from the almost
 empty cellar. As Pauli said in his brief welcoming speech, had Peter been
 there it would have been as near perfect as anyone had the right to expect
 in these difficult times.
  They held the party in the Winters' family home. This was the only
  practical way to arrange things if Pauli's seventy-two-year-old father was
  to be present. It was difficult for him to get around nowadays, and his
  elaborate wooden wheelchair wouldn't fit into the elevator at Pauli's
  apartment building.
  Peter's enforced absence in America seemed to affect Harald Winter even
  more than it did Veronica. Pauli had tried to fill the place in his
  father's life that Peter had left empty, but it was no use. He said the
  things that Peter used to say and tried to talk intelligently about things
  that Peter used to take care of. But Pauli's efforts seemed only to
  irritate and annoy his father, and it was as if Pauli's presence seemed
  only to emphasize the absence of his favoured son. From time to time Pauli
  and his father found again the wonderful warm relationship that both strove
  for. But each time this gold turned back to base metal and they were as
  distant as ever. But tonight Pauli had new hopes that his father would love
  him again as he used to love him, for there was nothing Pauli wanted more
  than the love and respect of Harald Winter.
  Dinner was served in the smaller of the two dining rooms. It was a fine
  room, still decorated in the old Griinderzeit style. Four columns with
  elaborate tops were surmounted with carved wooden angels that supported,
  upon their outstretched wings, each comer of the ceiling. From it an
  amazing glass centrepiece hung down low over the

               05
         Nineteen hundred and forty-three

 polished table and reflected in its thousand cut facets the light of the
 candles that made the only illumination. The Bohemian crystal glasses, Irish
 Linen napkins, Meissen tableware and antique silver cutlery were Marna's
 very finest. And she hired extra staff so that the evening would be perfect.
 It was a birthday to remember. just as well perhaps, for it was to be the
 last such formal dinner ever served in that room.
  After dinner the ladies withdrew while the men remained to smoke and talk.
  'You've been travelling a lot lately, Alex,' Fritz Esser said to General
  Horner. Since Horner's assignment to the Benderblock in June, Fritz had
  cultivated a friendship with him. Esser was a power in the highest echelons
  of the party, a valuable contact for an army general, and Horner knew what
  the army was thinking. General Horner had survived the Fiffirer's
  displeasure over his corps's failure to occupy impossible objectives that
  had been assigned to them during one of Hitler's tantrums. But Horner had
  almost worked the miracles demanded of him, and because the army always
  found ways of looking after its own, the Knight's Cross now hung from
  Homer's collar, and the medal of the German Cross was fastened on his
  pocket. Regularly they lunched together at the best Berlin restaurants and
  guardedly exchanged points of view. Fritz Esser, a peasant's son, got a
  profound sense of pleasure at calling a general by his first name, and
  Horner enjoyed the outrageous things that Esser said about the party and
  the regime.
  Esser puffed smoke. Always able to provide himself with the good things of
  life, from powerful cars to complaisant young women, Esser had brought the
  cigars this evening. A friend of his in the Foreign Ministry brought them
  from Vichy, France, whenever he went there for meetings with the P6tain
  government. Now that the German army had occupied the southern part of
  France, the supply would probably come to an end. The soldiers would get
  them, the way they always did. Esser decided to speak to Horner about it:
  he must have contacts in the occupation army.
  Homer, who'd also got his cigar going, breathed out and nodded approval. A
  Havana - there was no mistaking the flavour of it. 'Travelling too much for
  my taste,' said Horner.
  'Chasing Der Chef,' said Esser, looking round the table at Harald Winter,
  who sat at the end of the table in his wheelchair. Winter was not permitted
  to smoke, and he sniffed the air enviously.
  'The Fiffirer moved everything to the Berghof in the middle of November,'
  said Horner. 'I had to go there. I was.disappointed. I

               416
           'Happy and victorious'

 was expecting to go to the HQ in East Prussia. Wolfsschanze is not so far
 from my family estates. I was hoping to visit my brother, and see the house
 again.'
  'The Chief moved to the mountains. I told him not to do it,' said Esser,
  'but that damned Dr Morell has him in the palm of his hand. From one side
  of Germany to the other. What a mess! What a muddle. I was there. I saw
  it.'
 'Everything?' said Harald Winter. His voice was hard and rasping.
  Fritz Esser turned to him. 'The whole damned Fiffirerhauptquartier packed
  up and went down there.'
  'That was just the beginning,' said Horner. 'A skeleton staff from the
  "small Reich chancellery". And the special train complete with personnel
  from the Wehrmachtsfiihrungstab went, too. There was no room for them, of
  course, not even at Berchtesgaden, so the train was parked in a siding at
  Salzburg. I went down there for a conference chaired by Jodl. It took hours
  to find the people we needed to talk to.'
 'Were you with Der Chef on November 22?' Esser asked.
  'When the news came that the Red Army pincers had joined at Kalach? No,
  that's what made him take the whole headquarters back to East Prussia. That
  was the absurdity of it - they were only down there for a few days.'
 'They say he was in one of his blackest moods,' said Fritz Esser.
  'He was, until G6ring arrived and got him in a good humour again and
  persuaded him that the Luftwaffe was going to supply the Stalingrad pocket
  by air. The Fiffirer cheered up then, cheered up enough to reject General
  Paulus's request that the Sixth Army should fight westwards and break out.'
  'Will the Luftwaffe be able to do it?'asked Harald Winter. 'What do they
  need, five hundred tons a day?' Pauli looked at his father respectfully.
  The old man's brain was still as active as ever. Pauli smiled at him and
  Harry nodded.
  'They could probably manage on three hundred,' said Horner. 'I saw the
  Operations Staff estimates. But the Luftwaffe won't be able to do that,
  even if the Sixth Army keep the airfields going. We're only flying at
  night, or with heavy cloud cover. As soon as the Russians see what we're
  trying to do, they'll bring in fighter planes from other fronts. I dread to
  think what might happen.'
  'But they won't be besieged for long, now that von Manstein has been given
  Army Group Don,' said the always optimistic Pauli. He

                417
         Nineteen hundred and forty-three

 knew that Alex Horner adored the old general. 'He'll fight his way through
 and lift the siege.'
  'And all living Germans have him in their hearts,' said Horner. 'But he
  can't work miracles. The Russians have encircled an army of two hundred
  and fifty thousand men, and they'll hold on tenaciously. I know these
  people. Forget what Dr Goebbels's propaganda machine says about the
  Russian Untennensch. The Russian soldier is a peasant, but not
  unintelligent. And he is hard, very hard. Manstein's soldiers are finding
  a wall of steel as they try to rescue their Sixth Army comrades.'
  'And then poor Rommel arrived at Wolfsschanze,' said Pauli. He was
  prompting them on behalf of his father. Pauli had heard it all before.
  'Not so much "poor Rommel",' said Fritz Esser. 'The man is an intriguer.
  He always was. Back before -the war, I remember him when he was liaison
  officer with Hitler Youth. He was always trying to get the Fiffirer's
  attention. I never liked the fellow.'
  'I wasn't there,' said Horner, 'but it obviously was not a good time to
  suggest that we evacuate North Africa. And Rommel was crazy to arrive
  unexpectedly with such a suggestion. Whatever the military requirements,
  a withdrawal of the Africa Corps now would be a terrible blow to the
  nation's morale.'
  'Will it be better to withdraw from North Africa after a d6bicle at
  Stalingrad?' asked Fritz Esser provocatively.
 'Let's see what happens,' said Pauli.
  'Shall I tell you what will happen?' said Harald Winter. The others had
  moved closer together, as men do when the ladies withdraw. But Harald
  Winter, trapped in his wheelchair, was at the far end of the table. The
  candles were guttering, and Winter's bloodless face was almost lost in
  the gloom. 'The Russians will do everything they can to destroy Paulus
  and the Sixth Army by January 30. It will be Stalin's way of celebrating
  the Fdhrer's tenth anniversary.'
  There was a silence round the table. Erich Hennig reached for the wine
  bottle and poured himself a big glassful. He'd contributed nothing to the
  conversation. As always lately, he sat brooding and silent and got more
  and more drunk. Everyone had heard of this year's preparations for the
  tenth anniversary of the seizure of power. Each year Hitler came to
  Berlin and made a speech at the Sportpalast. It was the most important
  date in the Nazi calendar, and this year was especially important, for
  it would mark a decade of Nazi rule.

                418
           'Happy and tictorious'

 Finally Fritz Esser broke the strained silence: 'He won't speak.' 'The
 FiIhrer won't speak?' said Pauli.
  'He must,' said Horner. 'It would be terrible if he failed to come to the
  Sportpalast. It would be delivering a moral victory to the enemy.'
  'It's decided,' said Esser. 'He's told G6ring to speak instead. Goebbels
  will probably read a statement from the Fiffirer over the radio.'
 'Something must be done,' said Homer.
  'Have you suddenly become a convert to the aims and ideals of the party?'
  Esser asked him mockingly.
  'It's not a question of politics,' said Horner. He thought for a moment
  before continuing: even in such private company an army general had to
  remain circumspect. 'The army did not seek this war, nor did we encourage
  it. But the nation required us to fight. We are fighting with all our
  strength, and the cost is terrible. But we live in an age when the morale
  of the people is a part of the weaponry of war. If the Fijhrer fails to
  deliver his annual speech at the Sportpalast it will be like losing an army
  corps.'
  Fritz Esser put his cigar in his mouth in order to clap his hands. 'Well
  said, Herr General. The Propaganda Ministry lost a star turn when your
  father decided to make you a soldier.'
  Homer smiled dutifully. He'd grown used to Esser's sarcasm but he didn't
  enjoy being the butt of it. The fact was that he could never reconcile
  himself to the idea that an uneducated Kerl such as Esser could be a member
  of the Cabinet. But most of the Nazis were such simple peasants; even
  Waffen-SS generals he'd worked alongside on the Eastern Front often turned
  out to be men without any proper schooling. Some of them had difficulty
  reading a map.
  Fritz said, 'You don't know the FiIhrer, Alex. I've known him a long time.
  Goebbels likes to build him up as a superman and Himmler thinks the sun
  shines out of his ass, but really Der Chef is a simple man with wonderful
  gifts of intuition. But the Fi1hrer's intuition works best when things are
  going well. He is not a man well equipped to sail in bad weather.'
  'Well, who is?' said Pauli, who hated this sort of pessimistic
  conversation. If the Fi1hrer hated bad weather, Pauli knew the feeling
  well.
  'Winston Churchill,' croaked Harald Winter from the other end of the table.
  'Yes,' said Esser somewhat doubtfully. Erich Hennig closed his eyes. He had
  a nasty feeling that the conversation was turning near to

                419
         Nineteen hundred and forty-three

 treason. Men had felt the weight of the executioner's axe for talk no more
 'defeatist' than this.
  'Churchill took over when things were at their worst for England,'
  persisted Harald Winter. It was all right for Winter to speak treason: he
  was so old and sick that he had nothing much to lose.
  'Yes, well, let's see what he'll be like when they start winning,' said
  Esser. There was a deathly silence. No one knew whether it was Esser's idea
  of a joke or a foolish faux pas. No one laughed.
  There was a light tap at the door. Hauser, a sprightly grey-haired fellow
  in his mid-sixties, came in and said, 'The coffee is served, Herr Winter.
  And Frau Winter would like the Herr Doktor to cut the cake.' He looked at
  Pauli.
  'Good!' said Pauli's father. 'Let's join the ladies.' Pauli jumped to his
  feet and grabbed the handles of his father's wheelchair. 'Let Hauser do
  it,'the old man shouted. 'Push me, Hauser, and mind the carpet. It got
  caught in the wheel yesterday.' Pauli watched Hauser push the chair out of
  the room. It was Pauli, of course, who yesterday got the carpet's corner
  jammed into the brake and the wheel.
  The ladies were waiting for them in the drawing room. This was Harald's
  favourite room. Since being confined to his chair, he spent a lot of time
  here. It was a light, modern room with a newly fitted white carpet with
  huge zigzag patterns that crossed the room from corner to corner. There was
  a big chromium-and-glass construction that held some small modern
  sculptures - a Rodin and an Epstein - and the walls held big abstract
  paintings. It was everything the Nazi regime condemned as 'degenerate', and
  rumour said that Harald Winter had bought them at bargain prices for that
  very reason, but there was no mistaking how much he adored his collection.
  In the corner of the room was, as always at this time of year, a Christmas
  tree. And, in keeping with another old tradition of the Winter family,
  Pauli's birthday presents were placed under it.
  It made a wonderfully happy scene. The women had all made special efforts
  to overcome the austerity of wartime. Veronica Winter had had a lovely old
  pink silk dress remade. Lisl Hennig wore a gown Erich had got when he
  entertained German troops in Paris. Inge looked radiant. She was wearing a
  low-cut gold satin dress she'd had since 1934 - the dinner party that Fritz
  Esser had missed - but it still fitted her perfectly. Chrisi Horner still
  showed that engaging shyness that was unexpected in a 'Frau General'. And
  when the men arrived, even the rather doleful blonde girl Fritz had brought
  with him cheered up.

                420
           'Happy and victonous'

  Pauli cut the cake with great ceremony. It was as superb as cakes could be
  in this time of rationing, when butter was seen only in tiny cubes, and
  cream and chocolate seldom glimpsed. And although the coffee served from
  the big silver pot was ersatz - malt with some kind of fig flavouring - it
  tasted almost as good as the real thing.
  Now came the time to serve the French champagne while Pauli opened his
  presents. And if these offerings were not as grand as could be remembered
  on other birthdays, there was no sign of it in Pauli's reaction to the
  gifts.
  His mother and father bad given him a diamond tie pin, Alex Homer gave him
  a leather document-case, Esser a dozen bottles of old cognac:, the Hennigs
  some records of Erich playing Schubert piano sonatas, and Inge a gold
  cigarette-case engraved with his name and the date.
  Even today Pauli kept to soda water, but he relished another chance to make
  a speech. He loved to make little speeches and tell his jokes, and he had
  something prepared for this occasion. They laughed and applauded the things
  he said, for he said nothing alarming, surprising, or revealing. This was
  why people all liked Pauli: he did nothing disturbing, he liked things the
  way they were. He kissed his mother. She was such a wonderful woman; how
  odd it was to think that she was a foreigner. She would be sixty-eight this
  coming birthday, but she was still as beautiful as anyone in the room,
  except - he hurriedly added - perhaps for Inge. There was laughter.
  And how lucky he was io have his closest friends, and dearly beloved
  family, around him at a time when so many people, all round the world, were
  separated by circumstances of the war.
  They drank to Pauli's health. And he replied with this toast: 'I give you
  a happy and victorious 1943.'
 They drank to that.

 But the evening was marred by the tiff that Inge and Pauli had after they'd
 got back home. They were walking up to their apartment on the fifth floor.
  Inge insisted on walking up. Lately she'd complained of claustrophobia and
  could no longer endure the cramped lift car. She nagged Pauli to walk, too:
  it might help reduce his weight.
  It was while they were walking upstairs that Pauli said, 'I wish you
  wouldn't act the fool with Fritz.'
  Loudly she said, 'What do you mean?' She stopped on the fourthfloor landing
  and looked at him.

                421
         Nineteen hundred and forr~x-three

  'Those silly jokes ... winking and patting his behind when you kiss him
  goodnight.'
  Inge giggled. She'd had too much to drink. 'Has your mother been
  complaining?'
  Now that he'd stopped drinking, intoxicated people seemed intolerably silly
  and noisy. Patiently and quietly he said, 'No, but the old people don't
  understand those jokes you make about Fritz. Telling him to change his
  underwear more often. . . .'
 'It's only meant in fun, Pauli. Don't be such a prude.'
  'Well, Fritz doesn't like it. I can tell you that.' He got the keys from
  his pocket and went marching up the final flight of stairs to the
  apartment. 'It makes him look a fool, and no one enjoys that.'

         'For resenkment in the East'

 The train lurched to a stop. Colonel Rudolf Freiherr von Kleindorf, who'd
 been asleep while the train had roared through innumerable stations and
 rattled over countless crossings, now came awake in his narrow bunk. He
 turned over, but it was too narrow, and the sides of the bunk trapped his
 arms. When he put an arm out and hung it over the high wooden side of the
 bunk, his blood supply was constricted and his hand started to go dead, so
 he had to move again. He looked at his watch. There was only a very dint red
 bulb in the ceiling, but eventually he made out the time: two-twenty-five in
 the morning. Ugh!
  He'd been dreaming about Moscow again, about his brief time as a division
  commander. Suppose he hadn't pulled back? Suppose he'd given the order to
  fight to the last man, the way the Fiihrer said every unit was to do? Well,
  in that case he wouldn't have been disciplined and demoted to the adjutant
  of a rifle regiment until getting this regimental command. No, he would be
  dead, together with every last man of the division. Perhaps seven months as
  adjutant of a rifle regiment was a cheap price to pay for the lives of so
  many fine young men. General Horner thought so - he'd sent von Kleindorf a
  letter saying exactly that - but it didn't entirely make up for commanding
  a division. He'd give almost anything for that pleasure and privilege.
  Colonel von Kleindorf, a prematurely aged man in his late thirties, tried
  to get back to sleep, but he was unable to do so, and the train still
  didn't move: it remained where it was except to judder and shake. Every
  time he dozed off, there was some mechanical noise of

                422
          'For resetrkment in the East'

 the sort trains made: the clanking of the coupling link chains or the sudden
 hiss of air in the brakes. After what seemed like hours but was really a
 little less than thirty minutes, he swung out of his uncomfortable sleeping
 space and put his feet on the floor. The floor was cold. This was an army
 -rain and its furnishing didn't extend to carpeting, not even for the little
 sleeping cabinet provided to the officer in charge. And if the floor was
 cold, the air outside would be freezing. He had on underwear with long
 sleeves and long legs. Some of the others slept fully dressed - boots, too,
 in some cases - but on a journey like this Rudi von Kleindorf slept in his
 underwear. It was a compromise. Quite a lot of things in Rudi's life were
 compromises. Even going into the army had been a compromise, back in 1920.
  He put the clear light bulb on. It didn't provide much more illumination:
  these trains were designed to go right up into the army's railheads, some
  of them uncomfortably close to the front line. He slipped his elastic
  braces over his shoulders, buttoned up his flies, and got an arm into his
  jacket while he was stepping into his high boots. It was all second nature
  to him. He could dress, and even shave, before becoming fully awake. There
  was a folding sink in the comer. He splashed water on his face and ran a
  hand back through his closely cropped hair. He rubbed his face. He needed
  a shave, but his hair was tight and he'd probably not meet anyone who
  mattered. He was the regimental commander and senior officer on the train.
  He was reaching for the handle on the door when a knock came. It was the
  duty officer: Leumant Uhl. The young officer was surprised to find von
  Kleindorf fully dressed. 'Herr Oberst! How did you know?'
  'Commanders know everything,' said von Kleindorf. It was what Homer used to
  say to him in the old days. He wondered how often he'd credited Horner with
  such prescience in similar circumstances.
  Leutnant Uhl - a spindly young man with eyeglasses - said, 'There's some
  obstruction on the line. I have put out pickets, in case it's a guerrilla
  ambush. The train commander has gone back to find a signal box to telephone
  and find out what's wrong.'
  'A signal box to telephone?' said von Kleindorf with a grim laugh. 'Does he
  think he's on the S-Bahn to Wannsee?'
 'He thinks he'll find one,' said Uhl.
 'Where are we, Uhl?'
 'I don't know, Herr Oberst. Poland, I suppose, by now.'
  'Not many signal boxes and telephones in Poland, Uhl. You might make a note
  of that for future reference.'

                423
         Nineteen hundred andforty-three

  'I will, Herr Oberst.' Von Kleindorf liked the kid. He was not much more
  than twenty years old. He'd got into medical school at some absurdly
  young age and then, within a year of graduating, thrown it in to join the
  army. What a fool.
  'And no partisans this close to home. But you did the right thing, Uhl.
  It's good practice, and I want to keep the men alert and ready. Let the
  guards stay there. Men on the roof?'
 'Yes, Herr Oberst. A machine-gun team, too.'
  'Let's go and see what the holdup is, Uhl.' Von Kleinclorf put on his
  heavy winter overcoat and turned up the fur collar.
  Cautiously the two officers climbed down from the train and moved forward
  in the darkness. No moon tonight: such a night would be entirely suited
  to an ambush. But surely it couldn't happen this far in the rear areas.
  On the other hand, there were such curious stories. In the rear areas
  SS-Einsatzgruppen did nothing except summarily execute partisans and
  irregulars who threatened the lines of supply, and according to what he'd
  heard they were slaughtering people by the thousand, so it must be
  dangerous. Men didn't execute suspects without good reason, did they?
  There was a cold wind, especially biting up here on the railway
  embankment. On each side of them the land was flat as far as they could
  see, which was not far on this dark night. As they walked past the
  locomotive, they felt the warmth from its boilers and looked up at the
  footplate, where the driver and firemen were rimmed by the orange light
  of the fire. Lucky devils: they'd be the only ones warm this
  freezing-cold night. 'They've done nothing about finding out what's
  wrong,' complained Leutnant Uhl.
  'Standing orders, Uhl. Drivers and firemen have to remain on the
  footplate while a train is stopped. There were too many cases of loco
  crews being lured away and killed. Then the whole train is at the mercy
  of attackers.'
 'That's clear, Herr Oberst.'
 'A foul smell in the air,' said von Kleinclorf.
 'Ile fields perhaps, Herr Oberst. Human fertilizer.'
 'At this time of year? You must be a town boy, Leutnant Uhl.'
 'I am, Herr Oberst.'
 'What a stench! It's like a battlefield.'
  They continued walking. The train track was roughly fashioned. By the
  fight of his torch he could see the sleepers: rough balks of timber with
  patterns of holes to show that they'd been shifted and reused many times;
  crude wedges to hold the rails, and a total

               424
          'For resettkment in the Ease

 absence of the gravel fettling that ensured that wooden sleepers could be
 nicely adjusted for height. These were not like the railway tracks in
 Germany, so elaborate and well made. This was the East.
  Blocking the way ahead of them was another train. A long train, perhaps a
  hundred freight wagons. Painted dark green and marked with the eagle
  insignia of the Reichsbahn.
 'What's wrong?' called von Kleindorf.
  'The bloody axle, that's what's wrong!' It was the voice of an illtempered
  man dragged out of bed in the middle of the cold night.
  As the two officers got closer to the men, the speaker said, 'Oh, I'm
  sorry, Herr Oberst.' He was a hoarse-voiced man with a Silesian accent.
  'You'll have to get it moving,' said von Kleindorf. 'There are other trains
  close behind us.' The stench from the boxcar was almost overwhelming. He
  wondered if the whole train was like this.
  A bearded man who seemed to be in charge consulted his clipboard, flashing
  a light upon it to see the typed sheet. 'You're the HZ 1489? Advance party,
  Regimental HQ of the Panzer Division, Herr Oberst?' His voice was softer
  and authoritative.
  'Yes: seventy-two trains close behind us,' said von Kleindorf, although he
  had no doubt that the railway workers knew how many trains it needed to
  move an armoured division.
  'Can you tell me where the armour is loaded, Herr Oberst?' said the man,
  who then cupped his hands together and blew into them to warm them.
  Von Kleindorf hesitated. The disposition of the tanks and tracked artillery
  on their flatbed cars was not something to be revealed to the first perqon
  who asked. These men were undoubtedly Germans, despite their thick Silesian
  accents, but why would they want to know?
  As if reading his mind, the man explained in more detail: 'I can work
  ordinary freight cars, or passenger coaches, past this broken box-wagon.
  But your tanks will overhang their flatbeds. In the old days the smaller
  tanks permitted two-line working, but I can't work your large modern armour
  through without both up and down lines clear.'
  'There is armour right behind us,'said von Kleindorf. There was a sound
  from inside the car - animals, he guessed, horses or cattle.
  'And we've got more arniour on the train in the siding, so I can't shunt it
  over there,' said the bearded man and sucked his teeth

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 reflectively. 'Then we'll have to get rid of this broken wagon,' he said.
 He turned to his loud-voiced companion. 'Any ideas, Andi?'
  'The nearest crane is in the yards, but if you don't mind about salvaging
  it, we might bring up a winch and topple it off the track and down the
  slope there.'
  'I've got two hospital trains due,' said the bearded man. He'd taken his
  gloves off to write. Now he put them on again. 'That's the first one
  coming now, ifI'm not mistaken. Battle casualties. That one should get
  priority.' The sound of a train could be heard very faintly. The man's
  hearing was tuned to such sounds.
  'We can't wait for cranes or winches,' said von Kleindorf. 'I'll bring
  up one of my combat pioneer officers and we'll put a couple of sticks of
  dynamite under it.'
 'Without damaging the track, Herr Oberst?'
  'My Pioniere can crack an egg without breaking the yolk,' said von
  Kleindorf. 'But you'll have to empty it first. Your boxcar will be no
  more than matchwood. What are its contents? Livestock?'
  The two railway workers exchanged glances. What an odd question. Did
  these army officers really not know? Couldn't they smell the whole train?
  Didn't they know that Reichsbahn trains like this were a major part of
  the rail traffic eastwards nowadays, and that they returned empty? 'Jews,
  Herr Oberst.'
 'Jews?'
  'For resettlement in the East.' He shone his torch at the Reichsbahn
  docket clipped to the wooden side of the boxcar. Upon it was printed 'To
  Auschwitz-Birkenau' in large black letters.
  Von Kleindorf could hear them now. What he'd thought was animals was the
  restless movement of people, humans who must he packed together so tight
  that some of them could not breathe.
 'Get your saw and take the locks off,' said the bearded man.
 'What will we do with them?'
 'Can you provide us with an army sentry, Herr Oberst?'
  'I can't leave him behind, if that's what you mean,' said von Kleindorf.
  'Better you get a local man.'
  'We don't need a sentry,'said the man called Andi. 'They'll give us no
  trouble. They can go into the empty boxcar on the sidings.'
  It was only a two-minute job to saw through the locking bolt. But it
  needed the strength of both railway workers to heave the door open. And
  then the people spewed out, to crash onto the hard, cold ground with
  sickening thumps.
 The sudden stench of urine, excrement and death came like a

                426
          'For resettlement in the Ease

 blow. 'Good God!' said Leutnant Uhl, and jumped back in alarm. Even the
 battle-hardened von Kleindorf gasped at the sight. Women, children, old men,
 young women clutching babies, all tumbled out stiff, like dressmakers'
 dummies, with the cold - One tall fellow in a black suit hit the ground with
 such force that he folded up and rolled down the embankment into the ditch.
  And yet these wretched creatures nearest the door were the strongest ones.
  They were the men and women who'd fought and elbowed their way, or pushed
  their children, to where there was sometimes a crack of daylight and a thin
  draught of air.
  'Raus! Raus!' shouted the bearded man. He shone his flashlight into the
  dark confines of the boxcar, and there was the glint of frightened eyes.
  More people were there, dozens of them. 'Out! Out! Out!'But some of them
  couldn't get out. Some of the old people were dead. Children, too, of
  course. Men and women had slipped down in the crush of bodies and
  suffocated there. Others had fainted and gone all the way to the floor of
  the car, trampled underfoot until they were unrecognizable as anything but
  sticky, bloody bundles of old rags.
  Von Kleindorf felt physically sick. He turned on his heel and marched away.
  The young subaltern followed him. So that was the sort of resettlement the
  regime was offering the Jews. He pulled his cigarettes from his pocket.
  Anything to get rid of the sight and the smell. But the memory was a thing
  he'd never escape.

 Boris SomI6 was just losing consciousness as they began to saw through the
 locking bolt from the door. He was pinned in the corner of the car. He'd
 always hated crowds; even when his mother had taken him to the big Vienna
 department stores, he'd hated being crushed close to other people. But this
 was hell. For a long time he'd tried to hold a small boy up, too, but that
 was many days ago. It was before the day they gave them water and bits of
 bread. That was before the first time he'd lost consciousness. Where was the
 child now? He could have been no more than five or six years old, a solemn
 little fellow who had never replied to anything. Boris rubbed his face and
 tried to judge from his beard how many days they'd spent locked up in the
 cold, dark boxcar. But his beard had never been very heavy and he couldn't
 guess.
  Boris heard the railway workers' voices, too, but he couldn't make out what
  they were saying, and he didn't much care. He was so weak that even his
  hunger had abated. Nothing mattered any more.

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 Nothing. So - like the rest of them - he was totally unprepared for the
 opening of the door.
  As the door crashed open, everyone in the wagon moved, and Boris suddenly
  found himself swept to the doorway, watching people on each side fall into
  the darkness. He breathed the air, so cold it hurt his lungs, and then
  someone pushed from behind and he, too, was failing into the bottomless
  black space.
  He hit the ground with a thump that took all the breath from him, but the
  force of landing sent him rolling down the dark embankment. At the bottom
  of the slope was a shallow ditch of stagnant water,, its top frozen into a
  thin layer of ice that broke like sugar icing as he rolled over in the cold
  water.
  Suddenly he was fully conscious, but he had very little strength left, and
  no determination except to scramble out of the water into the field beyond
  it. The warmth of the packed bodies had been keeping them all alive, and
  now the effect of the cold wind upon his wet clothes chilled him enough to
  make him gasp. He stifled a cough with his hand and crawled on.
  He looked back up the railway embankment to where the men with torches were
  shouting into the half-empty boxcar. He got to his feet and walked very
  slowly away into the darkness.
  Boris dragged one foot after the other until he'd walked the whole length
  of the 'resettlement transport', his body aching with cold. Beyond it there
  was another train. It would be sensible to get away from the railway, and
  into the open country. The lines of communication were always heavily
  guarded - you didn't have to be a soldier to know that. But Boris could not
  face the open countryside in his wet clothiug. He was hungry, thirsty,
  tired and very weak. He knew that he couldn't survive more than another
  half-hour or so in this weather.
  He :stumbled along, without thinking of what he was doing or where he was
  going. He got to the second train without knowing why he was heading
  towards it, except that he could see its twinkling lights and it looked
  warm and inviting. It was an army train, and on the side of it there were
  big Red Cross signs. He approached it carefully. He'd learned now the
  danger that sentries represented, but there were no sentries except for two
  armed men on the roofs of the carriages. lie supposed that hospital trains
  did not have manpower enough to supply sentries every time the train came
  to a stop.
 Some of the windows had open blinds and he could see soldiers

                428
          'For resettlement in the East'

 inside. The train was jammed full of men; grey-clad men were strewn
 everywhere, like broken soldiers thrown into a toybox.
  Many of them were bandaged; most of them were sleeping. There was no
  movement anywhere. He walked along, staying away from the locomotive. The
  locomotive would have men who were on duty and awake. The next carriage
  was fitted with bunk beds for casualties who couldn't walk. This was as
  crowded as the previous one, with soldiers packed together as close as
  possible. All the men were wrapped in grey blankets and crammed into the
  bunks together, looking curiously like tinned sardines.
  The door of the third carriage was open, and the light spilled out. Two
  medical orderlies were seated on the steps, both smoking with the
  dedication that comes after lengthy denial. In the doorway behind the
  orderlies, Boris could see an open cupboard, its shelves filled with army
  blankets. He coveted one of those thick, warm blankets more than anything
  he could think of in the world.
  He waited for a long time, the icy wind cutting through him like a
  thousand knives. Eventually the orderlies finished their cigarettes and
  went back into the train. He could see them through the windows, moving
  along the train. This was his chance, and he got up on the steps and
  tried the door. It was unlocked. He opened it carefully and stepped
  inside and up the steps. To his right was a toilet, and behind him the
  communicating doors to the next carriage. From here he could see right
  down into the train. He felt the warmth of the heating and heard the
  snoring, soft moans and restless movements of the injured men. No one was
  looking this way. He stepped into the soft yellow light and opened the
  cupboard. He pulled a blanket out slowly, holding the others back with
  his free hand. It fell out and opened. He dragged it back into the space
  provided by the doorway. But as he did so the train gave a jolt. From the
  floor nearby he heard the couplings clatter and there was a hiss of steam
  from the locomotive as the train jolted twice and started to move.
  'Orderly! Orderly! This man needs help! He's bleeding again.' It was a
  shrill voice, the frightened voice of a young man.
  'I'm coming, I'm coming!' An orderly had opened the communicating door
  from the next carriage. He stood there for a moment, and Boris could
  recognize him as one of the men who'd been smoking outside. The train
  groaned and rolled forward, clattering over the steel rails of a
  junction. Boris stepped back into the shadow and pulled the blanket round
  him to completely cover his

                4-29
         Nineteen hundred and forty-three

 black suit, stinking now and soiled with vomit and excrement, his and other
 people's. The orderly passed Boris with scarcely a glance at him. Even his
 disgusting smell attracted no attention here, amongst the sick and injured.
  'Bleeding?' said thc orderly when he got to the frightened young man.
  'Where is he bleeding?'The train was picking up speed now. It would soon be
  going too fast for him to jump without the possibility of a damaged leg or
  foot. He looked out the window. They were passing another train: a troop
  train filled with soldiers. They stared at him, as they stared atall the
  wounded, wondering if this was the way they would come back.
  Blood had come from the bunk above and made a spotty pattern on the young
  soldier's face and the blanket. 'That's nothing,' the medical orderly said.
  'I'll change his dressing in the morning.'
 'I want to move,' said the frightened boy.
  'If you can find a place, move,' said the orderly. He smoothed the blankets
  in the fussy little movements that come automatically to trained nurses.
 'You've shit yourself again, haven't you?' said the orderly.
 'I couldn't help it,' said the frightened boy.
  'You'd better get yourself fresh pyjamas. But this is the last change you
  get, understand?'
 'Yes,' said the boy.
  The orderly came back past Boris, but before he opened the communicating
  door he paused to look at him. Boris met the orderly's eyes and his stomach
  churned in fear. 'I know your damned tricks,' the orderly said angrily.
  'You're not allowed to smoke there. Get back to your bed or your
  compartment or wherever you're from. You know the regulations.'
 Boris nodded.
  The orderly slarruned the heavy connecting door and disappeared into the
  next carriage.
  Boris watched the boy getting out of the bunk to get fresh pyjantas. If
  Boris could get army pyjamas, and hide his black suit, perhaps they'd feed
  him along with the rest of them. If he could get something to eat, he'd be
  able to think more clearly.
  He looked out the window. There was another army train waiting on a siding.
  This one consisted of tanks chained down upon flatbed wagons. His train
  rumbled past them slowly, hundreds of them. It was as if the whole world
  were nothing but tanks.

                430
     'Y(m're the only real ffiend rve got, Lottie'

 Pauli Winter could cheer people up. It was a magical gift. Now that he came
 to the Hennigs' house two or three times a week to visit Lottie, she found
 life much more endurable. Pauli told her jokes, Pauli provided her with
 stories and gossip and scandal, and Pauli showed her silly magic tricks that
 made a coin disappear and then come out of his ear ... or her ear! And it
 was Pauli who'd sent most of the books, especially the ones in English,
 which (unknown to Lottie) had been confiscated from their previous owners in
 police raids. And Pauli had sent the cushions and a red velvet armchair with
 a built-in footrest, two framed van Gogh prints, and some dancemusic records
 and an old wind-up gramophone. These things had helped to transform Lottic's
 two cramped garret rooms at the top of the Hennigs' house into a reasonably
 comfortable little apartment.
  When Pauli came, he liked to sit in the red armchair and put his feet up.
  The gramophone was playing Jeepers; Creepers'. Lottie was at the little
  electric ring making eggless pancakes to go with their ersatz coffee. She
  had become rather good at cooking in prison, where they had, for a spell,
  allowed her to work, and even to do some cooking, in the kitchens.
  Sometimes she had a meal with the Volkmanns, who occupied the adjoining
  rooms and shared her bathroom. And sometimes she was invited downstairs to
  eat with the Hennigs, but most of the time Lottie was alone. She liked to
  sit near the dormer window and stare across the crooked roofs and identify
  the spires and the shapes of the taller buildings on the Ku-damm. It gave
  her a lot of time to think. 'I sometimes wonder if there are any other
  Americans here in the city,' she said as she tipped the pancake onto a
  plate. The music stopped and she turned the record over, but she didn't
  start it going again.
  'I shouldn't think so,' said Pauli, although he knew from the ministry
  records that there were some. The chances were that they were foreign
  nationals classified as friendly by the Gestapo, or they were German
  emigrants who'd returned to Germany because of Hitler's New Order, and they
  were not the sort of friends he wanted Lottie to make. He didn't want her
  to start thinking about contacting any other people in the town. The
  Hennigs were sworn to secrecy, and the Volkmanns knew how to behave like
  fugitives. Even Mama saw Lottie only twice a month. It was better that way.
  No alert, much less a custody order, had been issued for her - there was
  that to be thankful for. But the identity card that Pauli had given her
  bore a big

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 'J' mark across the front and certainly wouldn't bear up under the sort of
 close scrutiny that German policemen gave to cards with'Fon them. Perhaps it
 didn't matter that her first name was given as Martha instead of Charlotte
 Sarah, but her age was given as sixty instead of forty, and the photo was of
 a much older worrian who bore no resemblance to her.
  If she stayed inside she'd probably be safe, but if she went out walking
  there was always the danger of her being rounded up in the street and
  bundled off to a camp. The fate of the Jews had become a subject of
  argument and rivalry amongst the various SS factions, but the dispute was
  only over whether they should be done to death immediately in an
  extermination camp or worked to death in a labour camp.
  By now Pauli's ideas about the camps' becoming self-financing had been
  extended so that the SS had become the owner of a great industrial empire
  that, in its concentration camps, used slave labour to manufacture
  everything from cheap furniture to forged foreign paper money. Prisoners
  quarried stone, made synthetic rubber and sewed army uniforms. The SS owned
  the Meissen porcelain company, and was on the way to monopolizing the
  manufacture of soda water, starting with the Apollinaris concern.
  'That's what I thought,' said Lottie. 'Imagine if I was the only one here.
  Why, I could write a book, The Only American in Wartime Berlin - can you
  imagine that? I'd be famous.'
  Pauli knew she was only joking, so he laughed. But he added, 'I wouldn't
  write anything down, Lottie. Not for the time being.'
  From downstairs came the sound of the Hennigs'child practising the piano.
  Erich said the boy was musically talented, but it was not easy to believe
  it when listening to his performance of 'Rir Elise'.
 'There hasn't been another letter, I suppose?'
  'From Peter? No, nothing. But he's safe in the U.S.A. The Americans won't
  make him go into the army. He's probably sitting in California with your
  mother, wondering what we're doing.'
  'I suppose so. It seems so long since I saw him. And Helena will be
  seventeen in September. I can hardly believe it. She was only ten when I
  went to prison. I have missed all those years of watching her grow up. I
  wish I had a more recent photo of them both.' She put the pancake and
  coffee at Pauli's side and he thanked her warmly. 'Seventeen. She was a
  beautiful little child.'
 'And now she's a beautiful young wornan,' said Pauli.
 'Yes,'I'm sure she must be, Pauli. She was always so perfect. She

                432
      'You're the only real friend I've got, Lottie'

 never cried the way some babies do. She was so ... I don't know ... so
 adult, so mature.'
  'Yes,' said Pauli. Lottie liked to talk, so he drank his coffee and let her
  talk. It must have been very boring for her, sitting here alone for so much
  of the time. And it amused him to hear her speak in fluent German that came
  complete with all the Berlin slang and underworld argot.
  'If I hadn't got pregnant we would have gone to America,' said Lottie.
  'Uncle Glenn advised against it, but Peter would have taken that job. Think
  of that - another year and Helena would have been born an American. I wish
  Dad could have seen her.'
  'Yes,' said Pauli. He watched Lottie with some apprehension. On his last
  visit she'd asked Pauli to put some flowers on her father's grave. She'd
  asked about the other Jewish cemeteries and he'd had to tell her that the
  Old Jewish Cemetery in Grosse-Hamburger-Strasse, that had been there since
  the seventeenth century, was now no more. Bodies had been dug up and
  disposed of, and the cemetery was declared judenrein, cleared of Jews.
  Lottie had been terribly distressed. Perhaps he shouldn't have told her,
  but he'd been frightened that she might make an expedition there and be
  questioned. 'It was lucky that Peter took her with him,' said Pauli.
 I think about that a lot. Could Peter have guessed?'
  Guessed that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor and that the Fdhrer
  would follow up by declaring war on the Americans? I don't think anyone
  could have guessed that, Lottie.'
 'No, I suppose he couldn't have.'
  'He took Helena with him so that Grandad, and your mother, could see her.'
  'And now she'll be an American. I can just imagine her at her high-school
  dances. But what about Peter? What must it be like for him?'
  Pauli drank some coffee. 'Peter will be all right. I suppose people will
  treat him badly because he's a German, but from what I read in the Foreign
  Ministry intelligence bulletins, there's been no largescale internment of
  Germans there.'
  Lottie was scornful. 'People won't treat him badly simply because he's a
  German. It's only you Germans who have that deep-down fear and mistrust of
  foreigners that makes you treat strangers so badly. That's how this whole
  Hitler business got started. It's people Like Hitler who hate foreigners,
  and too many Germans supported his hate programme. Americans like
  Europeans. The U.S. is a place

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         Nineteen hundred and fiTty-three

 where Europeans went to get away from pogroms and prejudice. My dad was
 never treated badly in the first war. I was a teenager then; I remember it
 well. We never had any problems.' She stopped. How could she make dear Pauli
 the butt of her anger. Pauli had risked everything for her.
  'We had a Scottish nanny,' said Pauli. He smiled. He took no offence! at
  her scolding; he supposed it was justified. Most of the scolding he'd
  suffered throughout his life had been justified. 'You remind me of her
  sometimes. "You Germans," she used to say, "you think only of making wars."
  She was a wonderful woman. She packed up and went home when the first war
  began. I never even said goodbye to her properly, but when I looked back
  afterwards I saw how much of her life she'd given up for us. I wonder what
  makes a woman sacrifice so much to look after other people's children.'
  'Perhaps she couldn't have children of her own,' said Lottie, and then
  regretted saying it as she remembered how much Pauli and Inge had wanted
  children.
  'Perhaps,'said Pauli. 'Lisl told me that Mrs Volkmann is having a baby.'
  'Yes, the Vollunanns are very excited. It will give them something to live
  for again.'
  'So miracles happen,' said Pauli. 'How old is Dr Volkmann? He must be
  nearly fifty.'
  'Yes, I suppose so. But Lily is much younger than him. I do hope it all
  goes well for her.'
 'How will the Hennigs manage without her?'
  'The tea room, you mean? Yes, she makes most of the cakes and breads for
  the tea room. I will help out as best I can - I told Lisl that. It's been
  a tremendous success. Lisl is so pleased that Erich plays the piano there
  now.'
  'Erich Hennig plays in the tea room?' Pauli was surprised. Erich had been
  so scornful about Lisl's new enterprise.
  'As of last month. Didn't you know? They were paying the other pianist much
  too much money, and he wasn't even reliable. Then Lisl fired him for
  arriving late, and they had no one for three weeks. But business fell off
  so much that Erich finally consented to play for the time being.'
 'I must drop in and have tea one afternoon.'
  'Erich says it's just for the time being, but his arm has got worse. I
  don't think he'll ever give a recital again.'
 'He didn't mention it to me,' said Pauli.

                434
       'You're the only real friend I've got, Lottie'

  'He still doesn't like the idea,' said Lottie. 'But they need the money,
  and Lisl loves running the place. She doesn't open until noon and closes at
  six-thirty, so it's not too much of a tie. Anyway, she doesn't have to go
  out and visit people: all her old friends come here. And she goes
  table-hopping and exchanging all the latest gossip. Dr Volkmann says it's
  one of the most fashionable places in Berlin.'
  'Here? The most fashionable place in Berlin?' said Pauli. 'Is that what he
  hears from the people he works with in the Weissensee cemetery?'
  'Don't be awful, Pauli,' said Lottie, laughing. 'He's exaggerating, of
  course, It's not like the Kaiserhof or the Kempi, but Lisl has worked
  wonders. Oh, I just remembered, your mother sent some brownies for me.
  Would you like one?'
 'No thanks. I'm getting too fat.'
  'Even when I was in prison she sent them. Not real chocolate, of course,
  but it's wonderful of her. A taste of the U.S.A., she calls them. I love
  your mother.'
  'She wanted to come and see you more often,' said Pauli, 'but I told her to
  make it no more than twice a month. For the time being I want you to be
  extra cautious.'
  'Whatever you say, Pauli.'In prison she'd heard what happened to certain
  categories of prisoners when they'd finished serving their sentences. But
  instead of an SS man with a custody order, it was Pauli whom she found
  waiting in a car outside the prison in Barnimstrasse. He'd brought her
  straight here to the Hennigs' house. She'd never asked him how he'd
  arranged things so that she wasn't taken to a camp. She just did as he
  suggested and thanked God for the miracle.
  'Things are tightening up. The war is not going as well as was expected.
  The whole of the Sixth Army perished at Stalingrad: twenty-four German
  generals surrendered to the Reds. Some of the boys I knew at Lichterfelde
  were there. It must be the worst disaster in German history. Fritz Esser
  says that in the final days Hitler got the message that his nephew, Leo
  Raubal, was amongst the injured, but he refused to evacuate him by air. God
  knows what will happen to the man if the Russians discover who he is. Then,
  in May, a quarter of a million more German soldiers surrendered to the
  British and Americans in Tunisia. More friends gone, Lottie. Will I ever
  see them again, I wonder?'
 'But no invasion?' said Lottie.
 'Of France? I don't think that will ever happen. Think how many

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 ships they'd need, and the whole coastline is heavily fortified. I saw the
 defences on the newsreel last week. But Dr Goebbels has decreed "Total War",
 whatever that means, and everyone from sixteen to sixty-five has to register
 for service. Even poor old Hauser has to register. More registrations means
 more spot checks.' Pauli finished his ersatz coffee and got up. He hoped the
 mention of the spot checks would be enough to keep Lottie inside. He knew
 from Lisl that she'd taken little Theo out shopping, and for walks in the
 Tiergarten. This reckless behaviour appalled Pauli, but he didn't know how
 to persuade Lottie to stay indoors.
 'You're not going already, Pauli?'
  'I'd better. I walk to work nowadays. I'm trying to cut my weight down, but
  it means I have to leave home earlier.'
 'Poor Inge. So she has to get up earlier, too.'
 'I'm on my own at present.'
 'Inge works too hard, Pauli.'
  He looked at her for a moment. 'Inge spends most of her free time with
  Fritz these days.'
 'What do you mean, Pauli?'
 'She sleeps at Fritz Esser's apartment.'
  She looked at him. Did he really mean what she thought he meant? 'Pauli!
  You can't be serious.'
  'Yes, I'm serious. I suppose I should have guessed what was going on when
  she was out of town so much. But it never occurred to me that she was
  always away at the same time that Fritz was on a trip. Why should it?'
 'Oh, Paulfl'
  'I accused her, and she laughed and said that they'd both wondered how much
  longer it would be before I guessed.'
  'Oh, Pauli,' she said again. She couldn't think of what else to say. He
  looked so pathetic. How could anyone do that to Pauli? His face was tight
  - the face of a little boy whose world has come to an end. She put her arms
  round him, and he embraced her tightly.
  'She laughed,' said Pauli, still holding her tightly. 'I asked how long had
  it been going on, and she said for years. She laughed. I told her that I'd
  never been unfaithful to her, and she just said, "Then you must be a fool."
  '
  'But Inge . . .' Lottie's mind went spinning. She'd not seen Inge for many
  years. 'I thought she adored you. I'm sure she did.'
 'Perhaps if we'd had a child . . .'

                436
      'You're the only real ffiend I've got, Lottie'

  'How could she be so cruel?' said Lottie, still holding him. She could feel
  his heart beating.
  'She loved me once, she said, but Fritz Esser is more of a real man. I
  don't know what she's talking about, Lottie.'
  'Sit down again, Pauli. You can't leave like this. You look awful. There's
  some schnapps. . . .'
 'I never drink alcohol.'
 'You need a drink, Pauli.'
 'Perhaps just one small measure.' He sat down.
 'Does Lisl know?'
 'Good God, no. She'd iell absoluteiv everyone.'
 'Who else knows?'
  'No one,' said Pauli. 'Alex is not in Berlin, and apart from him you're the
  only real friend I've got, Lottie. I mean, you're family, aren't you?'
 'Yes, Pauli, I am.'
  He smiled. 'I feel better, now I've told someone. I was bottling it up ...
 'Come and see me more often, Pauli. I love to talk with you.'
 'Yes, I will, Lottie.'

     'I've never been able to please you, have U

 Pauli Winter's deep and solemn love for his father had always been tinged
 with a trace of fear. If he ever had children he would do everything
 possible to liberate them from this feeling of anxiety that he always had
 when face to face with his father. Even now, with Harald Winter an invalid
 in a wheelchair, and Pauli, forty-three years old, a senior officer in the
 Interior Ministry of which the universally feared Heinri(.h Himmier had
 recently become head, he still found himself nervous in his father's
 presence. It was ridiculous.
  His father had said very little during this Sunday outing in the
  Tiergarten. He sat, a wizened figure hunched inside a large blanket, his
  hat slightly askew, as bats are when put on by a wife. He stared at the
  world disapprovingly. Pauli was pushing him; his heavy wooden wheelchair
  was too heavy for Veronica, who walked alongside Pauli, enjoying the
  sunshine and the greenery. The Tiergarten was at its best. The trees were
  intensely lit with sun that came under the clouds and made each leaf and
  blade of grass unnaturally sharp, like a world underwater. Whatever else
  had changed, this wonderful green park,

                437
         Nineteen hundred and forty-three

 in the very heart of the city, remained as glorious as ever. Pauli had
 been brought here in the pram by Nanny, even before he'd learned to walk.
 He knew each tree and bush, and the water that looped in its surprising
 shapes, and the ducks and birds that lingered there waiting to be fed on
 bits of bread hoarded from nursery teas. Sometimes, on the way home,
 they'd heard the lions growling in the

 ZOO.
  That summer of 1943 was perfect. This day had been wonderful, with warm sun
  and blue skies. But now the spell of perfect weather was coming to an end.
  Today the air was turbulent with the gusty breeze that comes before a
  storm. There was thunder in the air and the sky was darkening. For this
  reason Pauli had suggested they shorten their excursion. They could turn at
  the Siegessiiule and head straight towards Budapester Strasse. But his
  parents dismissed the threat ofrain: his mother because she knew how much
  Harald liked these outings, and Harald because he readily accepted such
  concessions from her. He always had done. He was selfish. Sometimes Pauli
  wondered why his mother didn't rebel against his father's selfcentredness.
  'I wish we'd spoken English more often at horne,' Veronica was saying. 'It
  would have been good for you, Pauli, and good for your father, too. And I
  confess my English is getting rusty these days. It's a sin.'
  His mother was wearing a smart new coat and a brown felt hat with the wide
  brim that was fashionable these days. When the wind gusted, she had to hold
  the brim or it would have been whisked off her head. She was sixty-eight
  years old, but she'd kept the same slim, upright figure that she'd had as
  a young girl. Pauli was proud of her. 'There is a joke going the rounds,'
  Pauli offered, 'that the optimists are learning English and the pessimists
  learning Russian.'
  'That's a perfectly awful thing to say, Pauli. And I'm sure it's not true.'
  'I'm sorry, Mama. I said it was a joke. I'm sure we'll soon be pushing the
  Russians back again.' The sky was getting blacker every moment, and the
  thunder came again; this time a flash of lightning preceded it. They would
  get wet if it rained: there was nowhere nearby to shelter.
  'I don't even look at the newspapers any more,' she said. 'All those maps
  ... Did I tell you that Hugo - the young footman who worked so hard to
  convert the wine cellar into an air shelter for us - was killed? He went
  into the navy and was killed in that terrible air raid

                438
      'I've never been able to please you, have I?'

 on Hamburg. He must have put us down as his next of kin. Poor little Hugo
 - I didn't know he had no family. That's why he wrote to us so often, I
 suppose.'
  At the mention of the series of air raids that had devastated Hamburg -
  and caused widespread alarm throughout the German population - Harald
  Winter showed interest in the conversation. 'What do you know about
  Hamburg, Pauli? What's the truth of it? Eh? Eh?'
  Pauli didn't soften the hard truth. 'Kauffmann, the Hamburg Gauleiter,
  reported having eight hundred thousand homeless wandering around the
  streets and needing food, clothes and shelter. What could we tell him?
  We sent blankets and medical supplies and so on. But our people in the
  ministry don't know how to cope with that sort of catastrophe. The fellow
  we sent didn't help them much, I'm afraid: he came back quite shaken and
  said the damage was unimaginable. He brought photos. The whole city has
  been razed. But they're gradually getting it back to work. No one will
  ever know how many died. People leapt into the canals to escape from the
  flames, but they didn't escape, and the canals were filled with corpses
  next morning.'
  His father growled. Every such disaster was to be blamed on that 'fat
  fool' G6ring, Commander in Chief of the sorely pressed German air force.
  His mother didn't respond. Perhaps he shouldn't have told either of them.
  Some people preferred to be ignorant of the facts about everything. A
  plane flew over. He looked up. It was a Junkers transport. He'd seen
  hundreds of them, but each time he saw one his mind went back to that
  dreadful morning in 1934 when the Fiffirer had flown into Munich to wreak
  a terrible vengeance upon his brownshirts. Again he saw poor old Graf
  fold up and spurt blood. Andtheothers. . .'Heil Hitler!' they'd screamed
  as the firing squad squeezed the triggers. Poor deluded devils. And what
  for? Had R61im's cronies really been planning a coup, or was it just
  another example of the Fahrer's notorious paranoia?
 'Will the Fiffirer ask for terms?' his mother asked.
  'Peace terms?' Pauli was surprised at such a question. The possibility
  had never seriously entered his mind. 'No, I don't think so. He's always
  said he'll fight to the last drop of blood, and he'll demand the same
  from us.'
  'But they will keep on bombing, won't they? Suppose all our cities are
  attacked by thousands of bombers, the way that Hamburg was attacked?"

                439
         Nineteen hundred and forty-three

 'We're safe in Berlin, Mama.'
  'But the Luftwaffe started bombing London years ago. I can't think that the
  English will want to spare us.'
  'Hamburg is on the sea, Mama. It's easier for them to attack Hamburg - they
  don't have to penetrate our main air-defence zones.'
 'You're always so confident, Pauli, but I fear the worst.'
 'What is the worst, Mama?'
 'That the Russians will get here,'said Veronica without hesitation.
  Pauli laughed. 'Come along, Mama. You can't really believe that the
  Russians could get all the way to Berlin. The Cossacks are coming: that's
  the sort of story Berlin mothers used to frighten their naughty children
  with.' There was another flash of lightning, and this time the soft
  drumroll of thunder went on for a long time.
  Another plane came over. Veronica said, 'Perhaps they are hurrying to land
  before the rain starts.'
  He didn't laugh at her. 'Perhaps they are, Mama,' he said. The plane was
  very low; it was a huge four-engined Focke-Wulf transport coming in to land
  at Tempelhof. Its camouflage painting was streaked with dirt and oil, and
  it bore the marks of recent damage. These long-range aircraft that carried
  senior officers and urgent supplies between Berlin's Zentral-Flughafen and
  the battlefront, reminded every Berliner who cared to look up how near the
  fighting was.
  His mother said, 'Germany is fighting a two-front war, Pauli. I can
  remember when everyone said that a two-front war is always fatal for
  Germany.'
  'We haven't got a two-front war, Mama. The British and the American armies
  are still in England.'
 'They are not there on vacation, Pauli,' said his mother sharply.
  'You're not secretly hoping that the Arnis will win, are you, Mama?'
  'No, of course not, Pauli, but I wish the Fi1hrer would start thinking
  about peace.'
 'I wouldn't say anything like that in public, Marna.'
  She looked at him. It was terrible when a mother couldn't reveal her true
  thoughts to her own son, but she could see that, on this subject, Pauli's
  mind was closed. 'No, I won't, Pauli,'she promised.
  He looked at her and touched her arm. He loved his mother. But, like too
  many other people he knew, she simply didn't know the difference between
  what was expedient and what was downright foolish. Suppose everyone in
  Germany went round saying exactly

                440
      'I've never been able to please you, have I?'

 what he or she thought? The cellars of the Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse wouldn't
 have room enough to lock them up.
 'It's going to rain hard,' said Pauli. 'Did you bring the umbrella?'
 'No, but it doesn't matter.'
 'We'll get wet,' said Pauh.
  Four young soldiers and their girls, anxious to avoid the rainstorm, came
  hurrying past them as they crossed the Little bridge. They were noisy and
  excited as only young couples can be. Pauli turned his head to watch them
  as they pushed one another and chased along the path. Pauli had never
  known that sort of carefree, youthful exuberance. His whole life had been
  spent in thrall to authority.
  When they reached the rose gardens everyone had gone, the seats were all
  empty. Pauli sat down alongside his father's wheelchair while his mother
  strolled around the flower beds. Harald's outings to the Tiergarten had
  become a set routine. Mama liked to examine the flowers: she remembered
  all the bushes like children, and remarked upon their progress. While
  Pauli talked to his father, they watched his mother on her tour of
  inspection. She showed no sign of hurry, despite the black sky and the
  thunder that was getting nearer all the time. It was characteristic of
  her: she was a very determined woman. One day Pauli would confide in her
  about Inge's infidelity, and she would provide renewed strength for him
  - but not yet.
  'Have you visited Lottie recently?' his father asked him. It was a
  surprising question. Although Harald Winter had been informed that his
  daughter-in-law was living in Berlin, he'd shown no interest in seeing
  her, and her name was seldom mentioned in his presence. When Veronica
  went to visit Lottie, she went alone.
 'I take food for her,' said Pauli nervously.
  His father's eyes shone with an intensity that did nothing to allay
  Pauli's fears of him. Other old men had vague, watery old eyes, but
  Harald Winter had the same piercing gaze that had sent Pauli running to
  Nanny. 'You got her out of prison, didn't you?' Harald Winter said,
  showing no sign of pleasure.
  'She was released. Her sentence was fully corrunuted for good behaviour.'
  Pauli's speech was hasty and nervous. He knew his father had an ear tuned
  to nervousness in anyone, and that made Pauli more diffident.
  Harald Winter looked round to see where his wife was. She was well out
  of earshot, but even so he whispered. 'What happened to Martha?'

                441
         Nineteen hundred and forty-three

 'Martha?'
 'Don't pretend to me, you swine!'
 'Oh, Martha. Your Martha.'
 'What happened to her?'
 'I don't know. Why?'
 'You went there, you went to Vienna. I heard all about it.'
 'That was years ago.... That was the Anschluss.'
 'You gave her a card and offered her protection.'
 'Yes.' Pauli smiled nervously. Surely now he would be praised.
 'She was arrested. She phoned you in Berlin.'
 'No!'
 'Don't deny it: I have a witness,' said his father.
 'I wasn't there.'
 'I know you weren't there. I say she phoned you.'
 'I wasn't in the office, I mean.'
  'Don't tell me lies. She spoke with you. The man who arrested her let her
  use the phone to call you in Berlin. You told her that nothing could be
  done.'
  Why was his father blaming him for everything? Pauli corrected him. 'I told
  her that I would try to help her.'
 'You did nothing.'
 'I did what I could.'
 'You did nothing.'
  Now it was Pauli's turn to become resentful. 'You think it's so easy, don't
  you? Why didn't you do something to help her? She's your mistress.' Harald
  Winter reeled back as if struck in the face. Pauli had never spoken to him
  like this, at least not since that terrible night when Hauser was stabbed
  by one of Pauli's Nazi comrades.
 'Don't talk to me like that,' said Harald Winter.
  So great was Pauli's sense of injustice that the sort of hurt and anger
  that he'd harboured so long came pouring out. 'I'll talk to you any way I
  like. I'm not a child any longer. She was taken into custody because she
  was a foreign national of Jewish race. If you'd married her she would have
  had a German passport and the protection of a mixed marriage.'
 'Are you trying to blame me for what happened to her?'
 'I don't know what happened to her,' insisted Pauli.
  Harald Winter stiffelled; his hands clenched tight and his voice went
  quiet. 'You never could face the truth, Pauli.'
 'I tell you I don't know.'
 'She was taken to a camp and sent east for resettlement.'

                442
      'I've never been able to please you, have I?'

 'There was nothing I could do.'
  Softly Harald Winter said, 'Your signature was on the protectivecustody
  order. Can you explain that?'
 'It's not true.'
  'There was a witness to the arrest. You didn't calculate on that when you
  sent one of your Lame 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
  1?' 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 t)ecause he couldn't prove he was half Aryan.
  It's your fault if he was taken: if you'd acknowledged him as

               443
         Nineteen hundred and forty-three

 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 Patuli 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 igoo: 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?'

               444
             '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 horne,' 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 sec.' 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.'

                445
         Nineteen hundred and forty-three

 '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 Fiffirer 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 Filhrer?'
 '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.

 446
          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 tohit 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 wo s 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.

                     447
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 '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 sec.'
  '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 took 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

                448
            'We're all serious'

 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 teap-ot.'
 'No thanks.'
 'Would you prefer coffeeP
 '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 andgot behind
  the wheel himself. It was a long drive to London, but Glenn

                449
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 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 threequarter-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, bvt 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.

                450
            'We're all serious'

  '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 iome of them are like that, Glenn. They are
  opportunists. They'll hang on to the money and fie 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 ?I
 '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?'
 I 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.'
  'I guess SO.' Glenn slowed up as they came to the circular junction that
  the British called 'roundabouts'. A lot of Americans, encountering such
  unexpected obstructions for the first time, continued straight on, and
  ended up as a traffic casualty on the central reservation. 'I would
  appreciate a little of that "judgement" on the can of worms facing me
  tomorrow. Something real big has come up.' Glenn slowed the car and cruised
  along slowly until he found a place where he could pull off the road.
  'I didn't want my driver with us,'said Glenn,'because this is really hot.'
  He switched off the engine. The countryside was black and the night was
  silent, except for a nearby owl and the distant sound of trains shunting.
 'Whatever is it?'
  'For over a year now the British have been getting feelers about some kind
  of peace deal.'
 'From Hitler?'
  'No, not from Hitler. These are people who plan to overthrow Adolf and then
  come to terms.'
 'Who art! they?'

                451
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

  'Right. Who are they? There are different groups. One is called the Kreisau
  Circle, pacifists and intellectuals with a lot of "von"s and "count"s and
  stuff. Big names they tell me. Okay.'
 'Von Moltke,' said Peter.
 'Maybe.'
 'The MoItke estate is at Kreisau, in Silesia,' said Peter.
  'Is that right?' said Glenn. 'Sounds like they need a little tighter
  security, ifyou can guess it in one go.'
 'Am I right?'
  General Rensselaer didn't answer the question. 'These Kreisau guys got a
  couple of higb-up church leaders to go to Stockholm, Sweden. They talked to
  some British bishop who was on a trip there. He brought their message back
  to London.'
 'How did they get permission to leave Germany?'
  'It's a question that kind of troubles me, too. Anyway, there are other
  contacts. Have you heard of a guy named Goerdeler?'
  'Carl Goerdeler, yes. Onetime mayor of Leipzig. Protestant, monarchist and
  anti-Hitler.'
 'What's he like?'
 'Tough, brave, active, intelligent.'
 'Sounds good.'
  'But noisy and impulsive. Too conspicuous, as an anti-Hitler man, to be a
  suitable rallying point for a secret coup.'
 'Okay, but what if Goerdeler got together with the army?'
 'The army?'
  'Goerdeler has been trying to sell his revolution to the generals. He even
  went to Smolensk to recruit Field Marshal Kluge, commander of Army Group
  Centre on the Eastern Front.'
 'With what success?' asked Peter.
  'We don't know. We know, or we think, that Ludwig Beck, who used to be
  chief of staff, is a convert.'
 'What power does he have nowadays?'
  'Influence, they say. The idea is that they knock Hitler off, use General
  Fromm's Replacement Army to take over in Berlin, then ask for terms. We say
  yes immediately and they consolidate power.'
 'The Replacement Army is just recruits and transfers.'
  'But it's got guns, and it's right there in Berlin, and other big cities.'
 'And is all this going on without the Nazis' knowing?'
 'The experts say Himmler won't wield the dagger that cuts Hitler

                452
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 down but he'll willingly take over the government when, and if, someone does
 the job for him.'
 Peter said, This is the man they call Loyal Heinrich.'
  'Well, maybe Himmler is a question mark, but Admiral Canaris is with the
  plotters.'
 'Canaris? Who's he?'
  'Chief of the Abwehr. That's why the generals feel so confident. The chief
  of army intelligence is one of the plotters.'
 What's all this got to do with us?'
  It didn't have anything to do with us - it was strictly a British headache
  - until these guys found our OSS office in Berne, Switzerland, and tried to
  hurry things along. Our man in Berne told Washington, and now Washington is
  asking us if it's kosher.'
 :Washington is prepared to do a deal?'
  Washington is an eagle with many heads. My guess is that they want to keep
  the conspirators simmering on the back burner.'
 To see if they can take over?'
  An unequivocal no might send them marching off to talk to Uncle Joe in
  Moscow.'
 'Is Washington that cynical?'
 'Yes.'
 'So what are we supposed to do?'
  'The conspirators are going to bump off Adolf very soon, March maybe: exact
  date and method yet to be fixed. They want us to supply an agent and a
  radio link. They'll want to have a communiqu6 about a cease-fire issued
  pronto. Then, if the SS remain loyal to the Hitler regime and fight back,
  these boys expect quick military help. What do you say?'
  'I knew it would happen.'Peter managed to conceal his happiness. He'd
  always hoped that the Germans would come to their senses and get rid of the
  Nazi gangsters. Now the old Germany - the Imperial Germany he'd grown up to
  love and honour - would be restored to its rightful place in the world.
  'Well, it hasn't happened yet. But let's keep our fingers crossed. A
  political solution like this could save us from invading the Continent.
  Maybe it would save a million lives.'
 'What about the Russians?'
 'I was hoping you wouldn't ask that, Peter.'
 'I'm serious.'
 'Sure you are; so am 1. We're all serious - the Limeys, the Russkis

                453
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 and maybe even Washington. But are these sons of bitches in Berlin serious?
 That's what we need to know, Peter.'
 'March - that doesn't leave much time.'
  General Glenn Rensselaer didn't answer. He turned the key in the ignition
  and resumed the journey, leaving Peter Winter to stare into the dark night
  and think about it.
  They reached London in the early hours of the morning. The sky was streaked
  with pink and there was the noise of pigeons, starlings and sparrows from
  the trees in the square. Cyrus Rensselaer's London house had been turned
  over to the American Red Cross as an Officers'Club. But Glenn had kept
  possession of the mews house in the narrow cobbled street at the back of
  it. He opened the doors of what had once been stables and drove the Dodge
  inside.
  'If I leave it on the street, regulations say I have to remove the rotor
  arm,' he told Peter, 'and, to tell you the truth, I don't have the faintest
  idea what a rotor arm is.'
  Peter smiled and helped close the doors. He wasn't always sure whether to
  believe his uncle's self-deprecatory remarks. Selfconscious about his age
  - sixty-four next birthday - Glenn had lately begun to refer to himself as
  if he were a blundering old idiot. Perhaps it was because the war was being
  taken over by youngsters. They flew the planes and commanded the ships and
  won the medals. Now even some of the generals were little more than kids.
  'Rotor arms!' Glenn Rensselaer continued. 'Why, some crook with a pocketful
  of rotor arms could go around the streets helping himself to any vehicle he
  fancied.'
  He led the way up the creaky wooden staircase. The place had hardly been
  changed from the time when it was coach house and stables: the stalls, feed
  troughs and drains all remained in place.
 'Ah, good! Sally has been here,' he said.
 'Sally? Who is Sally)'
  'Not my fancy woman,' said Glenn, and laughed. 'What the British call a
  charlady -- the old woman who cleans up for me.' He went over to the sink
  and nodded approvingly at how clean and tidy everything was, then switched
  on the lights. 'These mews flats are always dark. It's the worse fault with
  them.'
  'It's very pleasant,' said Peter. He looked around doubtfully. It was not
  only dark but also incredibly cramped: the'kitchen'was just a stove on the
  landing, the bathroom was no more than a small closet. The ever-adaptable
  Glenn - who'd spent his life in improvised lodgings - didn't seem to notice
  these disadvantages. 'Who lived here?'

                454
            'We're all serious'

  'Dad's chauffeur and his wife and kids!' Glenn took a bottle of Scotch from
  his overcoat and put it on the table. 'When gas rationing started, he got
  another job and moved.' Standing precariously on a chair, Glenn reached a
  cupboard and opened it to reveal electric meters and a tangle of ancient
  wiring. He switched on a box crudely labelled 'hot water'. Then he stepped
  down, red-faced with the effort, and looked through the mail that his char
  had put on the little writing desk he'd rescued from his father's house. He
  shuffled quickly through the letters and put a copy of the Saturday Evening
  Post on a pile of magazines that remained unopened. 'Dad sends magazines,'
  Glenn explained. 'He says it's to help me remember where my roots are.'
  Glenn laughed and switched on an electric fire. 'It will soon warm up.'
  Then, in anticipation of it warming up, he took off his short overcoat, and
  tunic, and threw them over a chair. Then he looked in the tiny refrigerator
  to confirm that she'd bought him milk. Americans were addicted to dairy
  foods, Peter noticed. Even the men ordered glasses of milk in restaurants
  or went into drugstores just to have an ice-cream sundae. After some
  thumping with a dinner knife, Glenn loosened a tiny ice tray and slid it
  out. 'Charlady," he said reflectively, putting the accent on 'lady'. 'Don't
  these British kill you? Even the men's urinals here are marked
  "Gentlemen".' He held the ice under the water tap. 'Take off your coat,
  make yourself comfortable. Wt-tisky?'
 'No thanks.'
  Glenn put some ice cubes in a tall glass. 'Maybe you want to hit the hay?'
 'No,' said Peter.
  'If you're hungry, there are some real eggs here. Sally gets them on the
  black market.'
 'I'm fine, thank you.'
  Outside, in the cobbled street, were the sounds of taxicabs arriving, and
  the loud voices of people saying goodbye after a party that had lasted all
  night. Peter pushed aside the net curtain to see through the window.
  Outside the house opposite, a chauffeur was hosing down a Daimler while two
  children raced matchsticks in the fast-running water of the gutter. Getting
  into the taxis were women in fur coats, a couple of scruffy-looking British
  army officers, a Polish sailor and a man in evening clothes, tails and
  white tie. London was like that nowadays - a curious m6lange of
  imcompatible elements - and these converted mews houses were often rented
  for short periods to such transient people.

                455
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  'I'm talking to Boy Piper at noon. I must have a tub and get cleaned up.'
  Glenn opened his bottle of PX Scotch, poured some on the ice, loosened his
  tie, and sat down on an armchair. He put his feet on a low table and sipped
  his drink.
 'About the anti-Hitler putsch?' said Ir6ter.
 'Yes. The arrangement is that I have to keep him informed.'
 'Is Sir Alan still running things for the British?'
  'Not officially, but his successor has assigned areas of responsibility to
  him. The British are good at dividing command without quarrelling about it.
  It's something we could learn from them. On their tank-carrying ships the
  senior army and navy officers have equal say. Try that on a U.S. boat and
  you'd have a knock-down, drag-out fistfight.'
 'But the final word is yours?'
 'I know what's in your mind, Peter, but forget it.'
 'The final word is yours?'
  'When we have a plan worked out, I will put it to Boy and he'll okay it.'
 'And if he doesn't okay it?'
 'It will be because he has good reason, so I'll look at it again.'
 'You trust him, don't you?'
 'Sure. He's an old buddy. Any reason I shouldn't trust him?'
  Peter didn't reply. He still felt bitter about Boy and his brief affair
  with Veronica. 'What kind of man will you drop to make contact with these
  people?'
  'No one big. Washington sent strict instructions about what we mustn't do.
  It mustn't be a politician or even a political adviser. It mustn't be an
  officer of high rank. Just a radio operator; someone expendable, I guess.'
  Peter was appalled. 'Those people won't negotiate with some tech sergeant
  from the Signals Corps,' he said.
  'For God's sake, take off your coat and sit down and relax. You make me
  nervous standing there like you're on guard duty.' As if to emphasize this,
  Glenn pulled off his own shoes and tossed them into a corner of the room,
  near the chair where he'd put his overcoat and tunic. 'Negotiate? Who's
  talking about negotiations?'
  'In effect, whoever you send will be a representative of the Allied
  governments.'
 'No, they won't!'
 'You're avoiding the truth, because you want to avoid the truth.

                456
            'We're all seriow'

 These generals and field marshals are not even going to say good day to
 the sort of man you're talking about.'
 'Then let them go to helfl'
  'Is that official policy? Would you really prefer that this had never
  happened' Do you want to ensure that it all collapses? Is this your way
  of showing them that the Allies want no part of their conspiracy to get
  rid of Hitler? You send them an uneducated time-serving noncommissioned
  radio operator?'
 'Peter you're a goddamned snob.'
  'You told me last night that this could save a million lives.' Peter took
  off his jacket. American informality went much too far: what made them
  relaxed made him uncomfortable.
 'I don't know what to think, Peter, and that's the truth.'
  'You must treat it seriously, Glenn. It would be terrible to leave these
  people unsupported. They're risking their lives, and the lives of their
  families, too. We know the way the Gestapo work.'
 :So you'd send a U.S. general?'
 You must have a general who speaks German.'
  'And what a propaganda coup capturing him would make for Goebbels.'
  'Not such a coup as having Deputy Ffihrer Hess fly to Scotland. The Nazi
  regime survived that.'
 :A general.'
  Or someone they'd consider a social equal,' persisted Peter. 'Germany is
  the most class-conscious nation in the world - no matter what they may
  say about the British class system - and the German Officer Corps is the
  most sensitive element of it.'
 'I guess you know about these things better than I do.'
 Yes, Glenn. I know about thern.'
  But to you this is a chance for Germans to show the world that they are
  not behind Hitler?'
 Yes, good Germans.'
  You mean upper-class Germans: the Prussian Officer Corps, intellectuals,
  academics and men with the right backgrounds.'
 'What if I do? What's wrong with that?'
 :Nothing. I just want to get the terminology right.'
  There have been plenty of chances for the workers to overthrow Hitler,
  and nothing has come of them, because Hitler is popular with the working
  class. Hitler has eliminated unemployment and he's given the workers the
  best living standards in Europe - far higher than England's - and workers
  with high living standards don't urgently want freedom of speech and a
  choice of literature.'

                457
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 'That sounds kind of sad.'
 'Well it's true,' said Peter.
  'And so the counterrevolution depends upon the generals?' Glenn said with
  just a hint of mockery.
  'You find it amusing , said Peter. 'Perhaps you don't realize what dangers
  the conspirators face.'
  'Okay, Peter. You're right, I guess. But I have a hunch that if I told you
  we were parachuting the Kaiser back into Berlin to lead a revolution
  against Hitler, you'd be even more enthusiastic.'
  'The Kaiser died in Holland in 1941,'Peter corrected him soberly, half
  hoping that his uncle would tell him he was wrong.
  'And people say you Germans have no sense of burnout,' said Glenn.
 'You must let me go,' said Peter, ignoring the gibe.
  'Well, we've both known what was in your mind since I first mentioned it
  last night, but I don't think that would be a good idea.'
  'The people you're talking about are likely to be of my age and from my
  class. I'm a German, I can speak to them.'
 'You're a defector.'
 'No,, I'm not,' said Peter in what was almost a cry of pain.
 'In their eyes you are,' persisted his uncle.
 'I was trapped in the U.S.A. by the outbreak of war.'
  'Peter! You're wearing the uniform of a colonel of the U.S. Army. We're at
  war with Germany. Can you really expect your people to see that as a trick
  of fate?'
 Peter said, 'I will have a drink if you will permit.'
  'All the rest of the booze is in the writing desk. I have to lock it away,
  or Sally takes it home for her husband's flu. He suffers a lot with flu.
  The glasses are in the cupboard, over the sink. Hit me with another Scotch,
  too, please.'
 'I can parachute,' said Peter when he came back with the Scotch.
 'I know. I watched you. You scared the shit out of me.'
  'I did?' He poured more whiskey for his uncle and a small measure for
  himself.
  'You were scheduled to take that group to Wales the following week. If
  you'd broken your neck, there was no one else but me to go. And I hate
  those trips to Wales.'
 'I could do it, Uncle Glenn.'
 'So it's "Uncle Glenn" now?'
 'Seriously.'

                458
            'We're all serious'

  'Peter. I wasn't kidding when I said that this was a job for someone
  expendable. You're not expendable.'
 'It's worth the risk.'
  'You think it's worth the risk, but you're not running the department. I'm
  running the department, and I say it's not worth the risk. Dropping someone
  in there is easy enough, but if this military uprising fails, the Nazis
  will clamp down real tight. And then there will be no way of getting our
  guy out.'
  'In such a case no one would have such a good chance of survival as me. I
  know Berlin, I've lived there, I have family there who would shelter me.'
 'And your mother is my sister.'
  'Yes,' said Peter, and knew that any chance of endangering Veronica would
  count very much against his going. He picked up his scotch, but the moment
  he caught the heavy, sweet smell of it his stomach revolted. He put the
  glass down again.
  His uncle was watching him very carefully. 'Oh, sure, there are reasons why
  you would be a good choice, but the reasons against are even more
  persuasive.'
 'Tell me the reasons.'
  'That you should go?' Glenn Rensselaer had walked right into that one, but
  there was no getting out of it now. Peter expected to be treated like an
  equal, and that's the way he'd be treated. 'General Fromm is heavily
  committed to the conspiracy. On his staff he has a general named Horner who
  was at cadet school with your brother.'
  'Horner? Alex Horner? Yes, I know him. He's one of the very best types of
  Prussian: honourable, clever, restrained. He would never be a party to
  something that might easily fail.'
  'Take it easy. We don't know that Horner is one of them. We only know that
  Fromm is, and Homer's on his staff.'
 :And my brother?'
 Pauli? No, no indication that Pauli is involved.'
 :Horner is just about his closest friend. I thought .
  Politics divides friends and families,' said Rensselaer. 'I guess you've
  discovered that already.'
 :Yes, a long time ago.'
  Pauli is not the revolutionary type, Peter. You know that. Pauli swims with
  the tide.'
 'He pulled me out of the sea.'
 'Okay, that wasn't the right analogy, but Pauli is not the type who

               459
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 joins a coup. Pauli is the bloodhound type, who smells out what's going on
 and dutifully reports to his superiors.'
  'That's not fair, Uncle Glenn. Pauli is the kindest and most liberal of
  men.'
  'I confess I'd worry if I heard that Pauli was involved in this business.
  I like him, Peter, I really like him. But Pauli has his own ways of doing
  things. They can be great, but guys who have their own way of doing things
  can't be relied upon.'
 'I want to go. Officially. I'm asking to go.'
 'Take it easy, Peter. We'll talk again tomorrow.'
  Peter was persistent. 'Tell Boy Piper that I want to go. See what he says.'
 'I know what he says,' said Glenn.
 'What?'
 'He chose you right from the word go.'
 'Well, then.'
  'One other thing,' swd Glenn Rensselaer, who now felt bound to put all the
  cards on the table. 'We have no one to receive an agent in the Berlin
  region. The British would have to organize the reception at Bernau, which
  they like because it's on the main line into Berlin. I'm reliably informed
  that their man there is that fellow Samson.'
 'Brian Samson? The man I employed at the Bremen factory?'
 'That's the one. He was sent back in, about six months ago.'
 'Why can't Samson do it?'
  Glenn finished his drink and pulled a face. 'Samson knows nothing of this
  business, and anyway he has his own work to do. He can't be compromised by
  revealing his true identity to these conspirators. Whoever goes in will
  need a lengthy briefing. Samson may not even have a radio. He probably
  hasn't been trained to operate a radio. There's no way to tell him the
  wavelengths. There are a million reasons ... but even if they were all
  overcome, the British wouldn't let one of their SIS people do anything Like
  this. The British keep their operations entirely separate from the
  collection of intelligence. All "Operations" are done by SOE, out of that
  office on Baker Street, and they concentrate on the occupied countries.
  They don't operate anywhere near Berlin at present.'
 'Samson,' said Peter. 'I would trust Samson.'
  'But would he trust you?'said Rensselaer. 'Up till now, the British SIS
  have refused to work with our guys, because they say we are amateurs and
  the agents we use are renegades.' He looked at his

               46o
            'We're all serious'

 watch. 'I wonder if that water is warm by now. I've got to get my act
 together if I'm to keep all my appointments today.'
 'You'll talk to Boy Piper,' insisted Peter.
  Glenn Rensselaer looked at him. Lottie's name had not been mentioned. It
  was better that it not be. 'I'll talk to him,' Rensselaer promised. He
  switched on the radio to get the news. It was tuned to the American Forces
  Network, a big band playing 'Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me'.

 General Glenn Rensselaer was late arriving at his meeting with Sir Alan
 Piper, or 'Sir Boy' as some of the wags called him. Glenn hated to be late,
 but he told himself his conversation with Peter made the delay worthwhile.
 He was shown into his friend's new office, a room facing a weed-filled
 bombed site at the back, now that Piper was no longer running the show.
  Though. this room was smaller than his previous one, it shared a landing
  with the kitchen and the ladies who supplied tea. On the whole, Piper, a
  dedicated tea drinker, had decided it was a change for the better. There
  were other changes, too, notably a wide-eyed young man with a thin nose and
  lank hair who had been appointed as Piper's special assistant. Glenn
  Rensselaer shook hands gravely with the nervous youth, who had come down
  from university with unprecedented high marks in Greek. To Glenn it seemed
  a weird recommendation for an important job in the Secret Intelligence
  Service, but the British seemed to prefer men who had spent their college
  days doing something conspicuously impractical. 'This is Mr Frank
  Harrington,' said Piper. 'He'll sit in and take notes, if that's all right
  with you.'
  'Sure thing,' said Glenp, and the young man took his coat and went to get
  them the ineviiable cups of tea.
  'He's a clever young man,' said Piper defensively after Harrington went
  out. 'He's one of the youngsters selected for security work in Germany
  after the war is won. We plan to have an office in Berlin with Gaunt, whom
  you know, in charge. Young Harrington and a few other selected people will
  work there.'
  'Has it got as far as that;~' said Rensselaer in surprise. 'Jesus. We
  haven't even invaded the Continent yet.'
  'I know,,' said Piper. 'These preparations for the future make me feel old
  sometimes.'
  Glenn Rensselaer looked at his friend and smiled. Piper was seventy.
  Goodness knows how he'd fixed permission to go on

                461
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 working all this time. It was the war, he supposed, the same war that had
 given him new work to do when he was past retirement age. Harrington came
 in, balancing two cups of tea. Respectfully he put them on the desk and went
 to get a tin of homemade biscuits that was kept for special guests.
 'Well, what did he say?' Piper asked.
  'Young Winter? He said yes, just as we both knew he would. I practically
  had to tie him down to prevent him from coming along here and giving you
  his lecture.'
 'What kind of lecture?'
 "Me same one you gave me, with a few modifications.'
  'Yes, there would be a few modifications. I can't imagine any German seeing
  it my way exactly.'
  'I've never been able to hate the Germans the way you hate them, Boy,'
  Rensselaer told his friend.
  'I don't hate the Germans, but I hate their attitude to the rest of the
  world. I hate the crocodile tears they shed for their own victims.
  Everywhere I went in Germany before the war, I saw big signs that said,
  "The Jews are our misfortune". They victimize the Jews, steal from them,
  lock them up, and kill them. But the Jews are their misfortune: that's what
  I hate about the Germans.' He found a box of cigars in the drawer of his
  desk and offered them to Rensselaer. It was a gesture of concern. He knew
  Glenn was worried. 'And God only know-, what we're going to find in these
  concentration camps when we get there. The reports we're getting are too
  horrible to contemplate, but every day we hear more of the same sort of
  thing. It's almost as if the Germans are trying to exterminate the whole
  Jewish population - all of them, from the whole of Europe!'
  Rensselaer took a cigar and toyed with it but did not light it. Lighted
  cigars were for reflection, contemplation, or satisfaction, not for times
  of anxiety like this. Piper waited for him, giving him time to think. For
  a moment Rensselaer stared in silence. Damn! Why had he been faced with
  such a conundrum? Peter was part of his own family. 'I'd like to have a
  couple of days looking for an alternative,' he said.
  Piper nodded and poured tea. 'Oh, of course. It's hard for you, old chap,
  I know it is. But your nephew seems to be an ideal choice.'
  'We have to put him in by air, don't we?' said Glenn. Politely he took the
  proffered tea and put it on the table. He could not face a cup of strong
  English tea.

                462
            'We're all serious'

  'I'm afraid we do, Glenn. Whoever goes will have to parachute. There again
  your nephew fits the bill.'
 'Have you ever dropped people untrained?'
  'Yes. They always. get hurt. Sometimes only a sprained ankle, but that's
  enough to write a man's death warrant when he's lying crippled in the
  dropping zone. The radio side is much easier. Nowadays; we have sets that
  even a child can operate.' Piper smiled and drank tea. Piper - like so many
  of his countrymen - seemed to flourish on this stuff.
 'And back through Switzerland?'
  'If possible, but I think I should be quite frank with you, Glenn. The
  chances of getting him back safely are not one hundred per cent.'
  'I thought Samson was coming back. You said Samson's wife was having a
  baby. You said you'd promised to bring him back.'
  'Samson is a special case. He's proved to be one of our very best people.
  We flew him to Stockholm in a Mosquito, and he went straight to Germany on
  a Swedish steamship. He has first-rate identity papers and he will come out
  very soon. Silas Gaunt wants Samson as his number one, and these Military
  Government security teams must be ready by the time we invade the continent
  and they have a lot of preparatory work to do. I couldn't endanger him to
  help the fellow you send.... Your chap's identity papers will be produced
  in a hurry. I couldn't risk it, Glenn, I really couldn't.'
  Glenn's stomach turned over. He'd always taken great pride in having an
  impassive professional attitude towards everything he did. But Peter was
  his own family, and over the past year Glenn had become more and more
  attached to him. 'He's expendable, you mean?' He kept his voice flat and
  unemotional.
  'You know I don't mean that. We'll do everything we can to get your fellow
  out, but the chances are not good.'
  Glenn tapped the unlit cigar upon the back of his hand and gave it all his
  attention. He said, 'Shall I take it, from everything you've just said,
  that you don't rate the chances of this assassination of Hider very high?'
  Piper got up from his desk, walked to the window, and looked down at the
  empty place where not so long ago a fine Queen Anne house had stood. Now it
  was flattened and the rubble removed; it had become a thick tangle of
  nettles and willow herb. 'Not very high. It's a long shot. Hope for the
  best; plan for the worst. That's all we can do, isn't it?'
  He turned and noticed that his friend's fingers had started to unravel the
  cigar. It was unsmokable now.

                463
          'Until the Fiihrer is dwd.'

 From a distance the two horsemen looked like bugs on a bedcover, a rumpled
 green blanket dotted with bare trees and small farms. They were Germans
 and, charactistically, the two men rode with that desperate competition
 that not even the Latin races aspire to. They chased across the fields and
 jumped hedges and gates with a calculated skill and a daring that bordered
 upon the foolish.
  A third man watched them through field glasses. He was in his
  mid-sixties, a soldierly sort of figure, but not in uniform. Though he
  was wearing rough country clothes and rubber boots, he was certainly not
  a peasant. He was standing on a hillock at the end of the churchyard that
  marks the very edge of the village of Hohendorf, on the road from Bemau
  to Biesenthal. When the horsemen went out of sight over the hill, he put
  his field glasses back into their case and strapped the case closed. Then
  he turned and walked back slowly through the churchyard, stopping now and
  again to look at the headstones. A sudden shower of rain began to fall,
  but he still didn't hurry. When he got to the little village church, he
  peered inside.
  The church was quiet and unlit. The last morning service had ended and
  the lights were out. The man went into the church. Though it was empty,
  he could smell smoke from the recently extinguished candles. Candle wax
  was in short supply - no one wasted it. He found a place at the very back
  where he could see everything. Then he kneeled down to say a long prayer.
  That finished, he sat back on the hard wooden seat and started thinking.
  He had a lot to think about.
  The man was Baron Wilhelm von Munte; his son was a senior official in the
  Reichsbank. The von Muntes were wealthy. They'd owned a big house here
  for many years, and their estate in Pomerania went back many generations.
  Von Munte had a lot to lose if his plans went wrong.

 Outside, where the brief shower had passed and the sun was brightening the
 dull colours of the wintry landscape, the two horsemen had stopped and
 were talking.
  'I would never have done this if you hadn't suggested it,' said Pauli.
  'And suggested it and suggested it and suggested . said General Alex
  Homer. He got down from his saddle and stood, enjoying the air. There was
  only a small patch of blue sky. The sun

                464
           'Until the FiArer is dead'

 would vanish, and there was much more rain to come, but it didn't matter.
  'Yes, I know. I'm sorry. But when the Reichsfiffirer became Minister of the
  Interior last year, it created a lot of work, and we are still not clear.'
  He got down, too. Pauli was puffed. That chase had taken it out of him,
  though he would never admit it.
 'But you're all right?' Alex asked.
  'Oh, you heard about the scourging of the lawyers. Yes, he got rid of all
  those lawyers in the Administration and Legal Section of Hauptamt Orpo, but
  that was long overdue.'
 'Fritz was disappointed,' said Horner. 'He wanted to be minister.'
  'Once he saw that the Reichsfiffirer was determined to take over, Fritz was
  sensible enough to stay clear of the struggle. But Fritz has done well
  enough. He's still deputy, and so much extra power has been given to the
  RSHA that Fritz Esser has become more powerful than before.'
 'That's not evident.'
 'I don't think Fritz minds that.'
  'I don't think Fritz minds anything as long as he can five in high style,'
  said Horner. 'I went to a party there last month; I've seldom seen such
  food and wine. You'd never know there was a war on.'
  'Fritz takes what he can get,' said Pauli feelingly. 'My God, but it's
  wonderful to be out here in the open country again. I feared I might have
  forgotten how to ride.'
  'It's not something you forget, Pauli. We were lucky to have learned so
  young. And the cadet school taught everything properly. I wonder what the
  old riding stables are used for, now that the SS soldiers are there.' When
  Pauli didn't respond he said, 'My little Christian will be six in June.
  I've promised him his first riding lesson then. Chrisi is making him a
  riding outfit for his birthday.'
  Pauli still did not respond. They got back on the horses and rode slowly to
  let them cool a little after their furious ride. At the brim of the next
  rise Horner dismounted again and stood looking over the landscape before
  them. He looked with a soldier's eye. The only way he could interpret the
  landscape nowadays was in terms of covered ground, observation points,
  artillery positioning and antitank defences. But th.is wasn't a
  battlefield, this was the homeland, and he tried to see it in other terms.
  He relished it as one of the things he was fighting for.
  'It's over between me and Inge,' said Pauli. There, he'd said it at last.

                465
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 'I didn't mean . . .'
 'It's all right, Alex. I don't mind talking about it.'
 'But. I thought she'd . . .'
  'Come back to live with me? Yes, she has. It's convenient for both of us
  now that she's not living with Fritz.'
 'It's tragic, Pauli. I'm so sorry.'
  'The marriage will never be anything but a sham. I don't blame Fritz,'
  said Pauli. 'Inge threw herself at him. She told me so. But Fritz became
  tired of her. I knew he would. Fritz has hundreds of women: it's the way
  he is. You know him.'
  'Yes, I know him,'said Homer. 'We had lunch the other day. He said that
  Germany now had no chance of winning the war.'
  'I wouldn't take that too seriously,' Pauli warned him. 'Fritz says all
  sorts of things he doesn't mean.'
 'I think he meant it this time,' said Homer.
  There was a pause as Homer waited for Pauli to respond. 'Things are not
  too good at present,' said Pauli. 'But there are so many things in our
  favour.'
 'For instance?'
  'If the Americans try an invasion, we'll thrash them as they come ashore.
  I'm convinced it will be the greatest tragedy they've ever suffered.'
  'I wish I felt as confident,' said Horner. 'I was in France looking at
  the defences last month.'
 'I saw the newsreel,' said Pauli. 'It's magnificent.'
  'The piece they film for the newsreel is,' said Horner, 'but we don't
  know where the Allies will strike. It's possible that they'll land an
  airborne army in our rear. And much of the coast is manned by Russian
  volunteers. We can't expect them to fight to the last drop of blood to
  defend occupied France for us.'
 'You think the landing will succeed?'
  'I think it has far better than a fifty-per-cent chance. And if they get
  a beach head they will land such an amount of men and material that our
  forces in the West could be overwhelmed.'
  'Are their armies to compare to the Russian armies?' said Pauli
  scornfully, hoping to end his friend's pessimistic arguments. 'Are you
  saying that these Americans, and the Tommies that we chased out of France
  in ig4o, can compare to the German soldier?'
  'Not man for man. But the Amis fight with machines. Our army is still
  mostly horse-drawn. The Anglo-American armies have got rid of their
  horses. Everyone is moved by road-, sometimes whole divisions

                466
           'Until the Fiihrer is dead'

 of infantr-y advance in armoured carriers. Their artillery has an abundance
 of shells, there will be endless supplies of bullets, and their supply
 forces will use planes and trucks to keep the pressure up. In the West,
 where the roads are good, we'll find it difficult to withstand them.'
  'We also have planes to attack them. The beaches will make a juicy target
  for our bombers. And we have the miracle weapons.'
  'That the Fi1hrer has promised. Yes, the miracle weapons. I wonder what
  kind of miracles they will perform, and how long we will have to wait for
  them.'
 'Are you really so despondent, Alex?'
  'Fritz is right, Pauli. Perhaps the war is not yet lost; but the war cannot
  be won. If only the people at the top would make the Fiffirer see it.'
 :The Fiffirer is determined,' said Pauli.
  Then perhaps someone must make the Fuhrer step aside, and do it on his
  behalf,' said Alex Horner.
 'What do you mean, Alex?'
  'I see divisions mangled every day. The German army is being destroyed. Our
  losses are gigantic, Pauli. Germany is losing its soldiers: and with such
  wholesale conscription, its soldiers are its entire male population. We
  can't go on like this. Germany is dying. Dying, PauliV
 'But what can we do?'
 'Have you ever heard of the opposition groups?'
 'The Kreisau Circle?'said Pauli.
 'Yes,' said Horner guardedly.
 'Or do you mean what Goerdeler and Beck are doing?'
  Horner was silent and like the skilful interrogator he'd become, Pauli gave
  his friend a few moments to reflect. But then he continued the pressure.
  'Are you one of them, Alex?'
 'I've been approached, Pauh,' said Alex Horner.
 'Oh my God, Alex. How can you be such a fool?'
  'Turn me over to your Gestapo if you like, but you'll get nothing out of
  me.'
  'I'm not going to turn you over to anyone, you fool. But how can you get
  mixed up with treason? You didn't tell Fritz any of this?'
 'No, of course not.'
  'Cut your connections with these people, Alex. We've had the Beck-Goerdeler
  group and the Kreisau Circle under observation for months. just go sick or
  think of some other way to do it.'

               467
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 'Is that your best advice?'
  'Beck is too old and Goerdeler too indiscreet. They'll talk and talk until
  their activities can't be ignored any longer, and then they'll be thrown
  into a camp. They won't do anything. It's all for nothing, Alex.'
 'I'm glad I talked to you, Pauli. You didn't mind, did you?'
  'Those people have been under observation for over a year. "Gestapo"
  Mfiller was bragging about it only last week, when I was over there. He was
  showing us his dossiers and playing the wiretaps. He knows all about those
  people.'
 'I feel better now, Pauli.'
  'Depend on the Ffih rer,' said Pauli. 'Some people are too ready to
  discount him, but he's never been wrong yet.'
 'Race you to that clump of trees?'
 'Let's go.'
  Both men swung up into the saddle with such energy that the horses reared.
  Then they pounded across the fields, their horses neck and neck.
  Pauli felt good, really good; this time he'd done something useful to help
  his friend.

 'And?" said the old man who sat waiting for General Horner in the back pew
 of the empty church.
 'He's a careful one,' said Horner.
  'He won't join us?' said von Munte. He fiddled with the strap of the field
  glasses.
 'No,, but he'll keep it to himself. I would trust him with my life.'
 'You have,' said the old man dryly.
  'He knows about the Kreisau Circle and the Beck-Goerdeler group. The
  Gestapo know, too. He says they have recordings of phone calls and
  everything.'
 'Poor devils. But nothing about us?'
 'I'm sure he would have mentioned it.'
 'It's been worth all the trouble to maintain security.'
 'But now I am compromised,' said General Horner.
  'Yes, we should assume that your friend will betray you. It's safer that
  way. But it doesn't matter, General. You will be in Berlin. There will be
  no need for you to do anything until the Fi1hrer is dead.'

                468
          'Wipe out these vermin'

 'You've been working hard, Koch.'
  'Yes, Herr Deputy Minister,' said Koch, his doleful expression unchanging.
  He was becoming more canine every day, thought Fritz Esser as he looked at
  the little man hunched in the centre of the sofa. Koch's dark-ringed eyes
  and bushy eyebrows made him look like a dutiful wolfhound waiting for the
  command to bite.
  Fritz Esser picked up the papers that Koch had spread over his antique desk
  and piled them together. 'I'll think about it.' Esser picked up the phone
  that connected him to his secretary in the outer office and said, 'Send
  Herr Doktor Winter in.' He looked up at Koch. 'Leave now, Koch.'He nodded
  to the other door, which led to the corridor. 'I want your part in this
  kept secret.'
  Koch had to move fast to pick up his Tirolean hat and leather coat and get
  out through the door before Pauli arrived. Koch was not surprised at this
  instruction. Fritz Esser's obsession with secrecy was well known. His
  assistants made jokes about it when he was not around.
  It was the first time that Pauli Winter had seen Fritz Esser's new
  accommodation. Far more comfortable than any previous office, it had room
  for a leather sofa in addition to matching black leather armchairs., And
  there was a low table so that Esser could sit with his visitors and drink
  coffee when he wanted an atmosphere of informality that could not be
  achieved from behind his magnificent desk. On his desk now, alongside the
  dossier that Lothar Koch had brought, was a loosely wrapped brown paper
  parcel.
  They shook hands and exchanged greetings. Pauli had promised himself that
  Inge's infidelity would make no difference to his friendship with Fritz.
  Fritz had said the same thing a million times. But it did make a
  difference. Pauli saw Fritz in a new light these days. He was aware of the
  deviousness and cunning that were hidden under Fritz's noisy, outspoken
  friendliness. Hunched over his desk, this man whom Pauli had a] ways Ukened
  to a moth-eaten bear looked like a toad. 'It's wonderful, Fritz,' Pauli
  said, looking round at the modern lithographs on the wall - a series of
  National Socialist heroes, from a tank commander to a shapely swimming
  champion - and the silver-framed photo, signed with fraternal greetings
  from the Fiffirer, that had a place ot'honour on the side table.
  'Yes,' said Fritz Esser awkwardly, 'you haven't seen it before, have you,'
  Pauli realized that the decoration must have been

                469
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 arranged by Inge. The carpets, the tapestry that hung behind his desk and
 the lithographs: it was all very much Inge's style. Some of these items were
 things she'd always wanted Pauli to have in his office.
  The windows were big and the view of Unter den Linden high enough to see
  over the famous lime trees. Across the road, men were repairing the two
  badly burned upper storeys of a building that had been hit by a cluster
  ofincendiary bombs. Nowhere was safe from the Allied bombers now. 'I came
  as soon as I could,' said Pauli.
 'Yes, good,' said Fritz. 'Drink?'
  'No thanks.' It was the usual routine, but Fritz always offered. He reached
  for the bottle and topped his own drink up. 'I have some new reports on the
  conspiracy.'
  'Better than the last lot?' said Pauli, referring to some hysterical
  rumours that informers had brought here in January, and which had provoked
  first alarm and then anger from SS-Reichsfiihrer Himmler.
  Fritz ignored this remark. He said, 'Would you believe that the army - Army
  Group Centre, those rattlesnakes around Kluge - are preparing a coup?' He
  said it without much anger in his voice and looked up to see how Pauli
  reacted.
  'Any evidence?' said Pauli. He'd heard such stories before. Berlin was full
  of rumours these days, and Pauli encountered most of them in his rounds of
  the Gestapo building and the ministry.
  Fritz. sighed at his 'lawyer's reaction'. 'They have a bomb: two bombs, in
  fact.'
 'They have?' said Pauli.
 'British bombs.'
 'Is the army so short of bombs?' said Pauli.
  'It is no laughing matter,' said Fritz Esser sternly and then, having said
  it so sternly, found he couldn't keep a straight face. Collecting himself,
  he said, 'These British devices are dropped for the terrorists. I have a
  sample one here.' He unwrapped the parcel that was on his desk. There were
  two metal cylinders inside, and Esser grabbed one to show him. When Pauli
  showed some alarm Fritz reassured him: 'These have been emptied. But let me
  show you how they work.'
  'Very well,' said Pauli. Fritz Esser did not have the sort of brain that
  could cope with the intricacies of mechanical engineering, but these bombs
  were simple enough for him to understand the way they functioned, and he
  proudly explained the workings to Pauli. 'You

                470
           'Wipe out these vermin'

 press here and the little bottle breaks. Then acid cats into the restraining
 wire until the wire . . . There, that's it - see? Lets the spring bring the
 . . . Wait a moment. Yes, that's it. The striker there hits the detonator.
 Detonator explodes and up goes the bomb. What do you think?'
  'Very crude. It looks as if a schoolboy made it. Is this the best the
  British can do?'
  'Crude, Yes. They make them by the thousands, and it costs them almost
  nothing. They drop them into France, Belgium, Holland, Norway and so on.
  These hoodlums use them against us while the British rub their hands and
  laugh.'
 'Are you saying there's to be an attempt to kill the Fahrer?'
  'It's silent. That's what you've missed, Pauli. No ticking or whining of
  clockwork. Absolutely silent. And this wire can be changed so that the
  timing can be anything you want, from ten minutes to an hour or two.'
 'Can I ask how you came by this infernal machine?'
 'The Abwehr have intercepted thousands of them.'
  'The Abwehr.' Since February 18, the army's intelligence service had been
  amalgamated with the SD, the SS intelligence service, and now came into
  Himmler's ever-growing empire.
  'The Abwehr are a part of the conspiracy against the Fiffirer. Sometime
  last year there was a conference of intelligence officers at Smolensk .-
  Army Group Centre - and two of these bombs were taken there. That's where
  the army swines did their plotting. They might have already tried and
  failed. We have trouble infiltrating these army circles, of course. They
  close ranks against us.'
 'What do they plan?' asked Pauli.
  'I don'tknow, but there has already been some contact between certain of
  these traitors and the Western governments.'
 'How do you know?'
 'The Ausland-SD and the Gestapo both agree on that.'
 'Will there be arrests?'
  'Not yet,,' said Esser. 'The SS-Reichsfflhrer says that nothing is to be
  done until we are quite ready.'
 'The Ffihrer's life is in danger,' said Pauli, appalled at the risk.
  Fritz drank some of his drink. It was brandy; Pauli could smell it. Then
  Fritz leaned forward and in a low voice said, 'Suppose I told you that the
  SS-Reichsfiihrer himself has been in contact with the Americans?' Pauli was
  not shocked; he didn't believe it. It was one of Fritz Esser's stories.

                471
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 'To discuss making peace with them?'
  'He sent Dr Carl Langbelm - a Berlin lawyer - to Switzerland to talk to an
  American named Dulles who claims to speak on behalf of President
  Roosevelt.'
  Was it true? Could it be? 'I can't believe it. But Langbehn was arrested.
  . . .'
  'Listen, Pauli, listen. Langbehn went to Switzerland with the SS-
  Reichsfiihrer's blessing. But the Gestapo monitoring service picked up a
  radio broadcast. No one knows how, why, or what the source was, but the
  British have always opposed any dealings with the SSReichsfiffirer, so it
  looks like the British wanted to sabotage the Langbehn talks and sent the
  message so it could be monitored by our listening service. . . . The
  Gestapo sent the intercepted message to 170hrer HQ, and we had no
  alternative but to arrest Langbehn and send him to a camp.' Fritz grinned
  to reveal his bent teeth. 'The SSReichsfiihrer was very worried. Yes, I've
  never seen Heini so scared. Since then he's had no contact at all with any
  other of the groups.'
  Pauli was overwhelmed. His world was failing to pieces. 'This is all true?
  I can hardly believe it.'
  'Well, believe it: it's true, every word. But Heini's problem has always
  been his oath to the Fi1hrer. He wouldn't listen to any plans that included
  doing harm to the Fijhrer.'
 'I should think not,' said Pauli.
  'And yet, while the FiIhrer is there, no one will be allowed to do what has
  to be done.' Fritz Esser leaned forward across his desk and touched his
  ftngertips together while he smiled. 'But suppose something like this . .
  .' He touched the bomb delicately, as if it might explode. 'Suppose the
  person we're talking about was no more." Even Fritz couldn't bring himself
  to say it in plainer words. 'Then we could arrest the culprits and provide
  the SS-Reichsfiihrer with the mission that I believe is his.'
  Pauli looked at Fritz Esser as he realized what Fritz meant. He wanted the
  Fiffirer to be assassinated, to make way for Himmler. What a hypocrite he
  was, and what a cynic. How much of this had come from the SS-Reichsfiihrer,
  and how much of it had been planted in Heini's mind by the cunning Fritz?
  But it made sense - it was crude and cunning but it made sense - and what
  Fritz had told him fitted together with other things he'd come across in
  his official duties.
 'Why are you telling me this, Fritz?'

                472
           'Wipe out these vermin'

  'I want you to take over the investigation of these treacherous
  opposition groups.'
 'Me?'
 'You'll have all the authority and all the staff you need.'
 'No, Fritz, no. Please.'
 'Pauli, it's got to be someone I can trust.'
 'What do you want me to do?'
 'Isn't it obvious?'
 'No.'
  'I want you to wipe out these vermin, whether they are in the army, the
  Abwehr, the church, the universities, or anywhere else. Even if they are
  in the SD or the Gestapo, you will have authority to question who you
  like. No one will be empowered to challenge your authority. I want the
  Ffthrer to know that the party's police apparatus is in control of the
  state.'
 'You want me to smash these organizations?'
  'Investigate them,' Fritz corrected him gently. 'There are influential
  people involved: high churchmen, field marshals and aristocrats. Don't
  underestimate their power. There will have to be a proper trial. The
  party can't afford to look foolish in court.'
 'So I shall bring them to trial?'
  'Yes, but not too quickly.' He smiled that inimitable cunning smile.
  'Give them time to do something we can charge them with.'
  Across the road the workmen were boarding up the top storeys of the
  ministry; the upper part of the building was being closed and abandoned.
  It was eyeless, its boarded-up windows here in the Government Quarter a
  reminder to every passer-by that the Allied bombers could bring the war
  to the heart of the Reich.
 'Do you understand?' asked Fritz.
 'I understand,' said Pauli.

     'We don't need any help in killing Hider'

Before the coming of the Nazi regime, the inhabitants of Berlin's
Wedding were reliably communist in sympathy. It was a district of
huge old apartment blocks, barracklike buildings that had been
hurriedly built in the previous century to house the seemingly
endless waves of peasants who swarmed into Berlin looking for jobs
in the new factories. Since they were designed in a honeycomb style,
shafts of daylight could sometimes reach into their courtyards and

                473
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 scatter light into their tiny, squalid rooms, where men crowded together in
 dozens. Now these apartment houses were not so crowded or so squalid as they
 once had been, but there was no comfort here in the grim stone monoliths,
 and the inhabitants were thankful that summer was coming, bringing with it
 more light and warmth.
  A room at the very top of one such building was, on this chilly spring
  evening, occupied by two men. One was some sort of foreign seaman, a tall,
  cheerful man, about thirty-five years old, with a large moustache and
  steel-rimmed circular glasses, excellent German -usually an impossible
  language for foreigners to master - and a clever way of making rude jokes
  that were particularly berlinerisch. With him there was a German fellow,
  getting on for fifty, with wavy grey hair and the sort of Berlin accent
  that you'd expect to hear in Grunewald, rather than in a grimy place like
  this.
  Living together in the same room for nearly two weeks had not made the men
  friends. The stress did not help, nor did the smell from the toilet on the
  landing, the dirty sheets on the bed, and the stuffy atmosphere of this
  room in which they slept, ate, played cards and tried not to argue.
  'What's the time?' said Peter Winter, the elder of the men. He was wearing
  a dark-grey suit. It was baggy and in places threadbare, but it was one of
  the few suits that had fitted him when the Special Operations Executive in
  London offered him their selection of German-made clothes with German
  labels. It might help him sustain the fiction that he was the senior
  costing clerk that his forged identity papers described. But
  respectable-looking clerks were not easily provided for. Most of the
  clothes available came from refugees, and refugees are not noted for their
  sartorial elegance.
  'Twenty-five minutes past,' replied Brian Samson testily. It was the third
  time Winter had asked him that question in the previous quarter of an hour.
  Samson had a white roll-neck seaman's sweater and brown corduroy trousers
  and heavy boots with studs that in the last resort he could use as a
  weapon. He was sitting immediately under the light, daming a sock while
  holding it stretched over an empty tumbler.
  'They should have sent someone by now.' Winter looked at the radio
  transmitter in the comer. If they were caught with that, and the antenna
  that was fixed to the guttering outside the window, they'd be executed
  without trial. He looked at Samson. There was no anxiety to be seen; it
  wasn't nerves that made him so bad-tempered. If the

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       'We don't need any help in killing Hitler'

 door crashed down now, Brian Samson would smile and do his Swedish seaman
 act and get away with it, with laughs and salutes all round. Samson had
 the 'common touch' and Peter Winter envied him that gift. In the dangerous
 game of espionage, the 'common touch' could be a trump card.
  'Perhaps Hitler cancelled the meeting and went back to Wolfsschanze,'
  said Samson. He said the name of the Fiffirer's headquarter's with
  unconcealed contempt. 'Wolf's Lair'- the name that Hitler had given to
  his headquarters - was a measure of the fantasy world in which these
  madmen lived.
  'To Rastenburg in East Prussia? No, that's out of the question.
  Everything is done from the Berghof at this time of year. The Fiffirer
  is spending more and more time there these days. The generals say the
  Fiffirer won't go back east until the summer offensive begins.'
  'I wish you wouldn't keel) calling that bastard the Fiffirer. He's not
  my Fiffirer.'
  Peter Winter didn't argue, but it was difficult to get out of such
  ingrained habits. 'That's why this is such a good time for the army to
  do it. He'll be at the Berghof until about July, and the security there
  is not so rigorous.'
  'I see,' said Samson sardonically, without looking up from his darning.
  Winter looked down at the crippled fingers of his left hand. Handling the
  harness and shroud lines for his parachute drop had proved difficult, and
  this maimed hand was red and sore with the exertion of it. For years he'd
  been able to forget about the deformity, but now - under the critical
  gaze of Samson - he was self-conscious again. 'It's a young captain....
  He's demonstrating a new antitank weapon to Hitler. . . .' lie got it
  right this time, 'Hitler', not 'Ffihrer'. 'The bomb is concealed in one
  of the ammunition boxes that are part of the demonstration.'
 'Sounds good,' said Samson in an offhand way.
  'The officer will lose his own life,' persisted Peter. He looked at his
  companion in the hope that he'd show more interest and compassion.
  Samson looked up from his darning, stared at Peter, and said, 'You really
  believe all this shit, don't you?'
 'What do you mean?'
  'Do our people in London believe all this rubbish you keep telling me?'
  And then, in answer to his own question, 'I suppose they must do, or they
  wouldn't have given me all the extra work of looking after you.

               475
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

  Peter resented that. It was typical of Samson that everything was measured
  by his work and his inconvenience. 'Why wouldn't they believe it?'
  'The Yanks sent you, didn't they? They'll believe anything. If someone told
  those Yanks in London that Hitler was really a tame gorilla, they'd send a
  zoologist over here.'
 'The army are determined . . .'
  'The army! Don't tell me about the bloody army. Those spineless bastards
  didn't discover that there was anything wrong with Hitler until the Red
  Army started showing them how to fight battles, and the RAF started bombing
  their precious German towns. Now they've decided that they want to get rid
  of him. Typically German, that: fair-weather friends, the Germans.'
  'They've tried before,' said Peter. He knew that a lot of it was just
  Samson letting off steam, but it hurt just the same.
  'And how they've tried before! I've heard so many stories about the army's
  attempts to assassinate Hitler that I can't keep account of them.'
 'His security is so tight nowadays.'
  'So why weren't they trying to kill the bastard back in 1940, when security
  wasn't so tight? Too busy marching into Poland, Norway, France, Belgium and
  Holland, that's why.'
 'Perhaps.'
  'No "perhaps" about it. These bloody aristocrat army officers are not going
  to kill Hitler. They haven't got the guts. If the generals were going to
  kill Hitler, they would have done it by now. My God, they've been
  discussing it long enough. Would you like to know when I first heard those
  stories?'
  Peter, who didn't want to hear how long ago that was, said, 'It's not only
  'Lhe army. A lot of Germans are making efforts to get an armistice.'
  'An "armistice" is the right word,' said Samson. 'A suspension of
  hostilities. That's what they want - a breathing space before going back to
  war again. I've got no time for any of them: generals, landed gentry,
  churchmen, intellectuals, liberals and all that crowd. I wouldn't listen to
  any ofthem. A kick up the ass is what they need.'
 'Don't you want the war to end?'
  'Yes, I want the war to end. But I want it to end at the right time, at the
  right place, and with the right people ending it. We've stated our war
  policy - unconditional surrender. We don't want any of this damned
  armistice nonsense. We had an armistice in 19 18, and look

               476
       'We don't need any help in killing Hitler'

 what happened. It only needed a few years of reorganization and rearmament
 and you bloody Germans were on the march again. No, no, no. Let's not make
 the same mistake again. The hell with this clique of well-born officers, and
 the rest of them. Sod them! We don't need any help in killing Hitler. We'll
 do it in our own way and in our own good time.'
 'Is that what most of your countrymen feel?'
  ,My countrymen? Yes, it is. And if you think we're a bit lacking of the Old
  World courtesies, you should talk to the Poles and the Czechs and the rest
  of the poor devils you've walked over.'
  'I didn't realize how strongly you feel. Under the circumstances I must
  thank you again for everything you've done for me.'
  'I did what I had to do.'He looked at his watch. 'They're not going to kill
  Hitler. They'll have some wonderful excuses, of course - they always do. If
  they spent as much time on their assassination plots as they do on their
  excuses, Hitler would have been eaten by the maggots long ago.'
 'We'll see.'
  Seeing that his outburst had failed to anger Winter, Samson was a fraction
  more conciliatory. 'You see, these staff officers you think so much of --
  they don't want to make Germany into any sort of democracy. I don't have to
  tell you that; you remember what most army officers thought about the
  Weimar government.'
 :They don't like Hitler,' said Winter.
  No, he's the wrong rank for them. They don't hate Hitler because he invaded
  neutral countries or because of what he's doing to the Jews. They hate him
  because he's a rough-spoken Austrian country yokel who doesn't respect
  their noble ancestry and admire their mastery of the art of war.'
 :That's silly talk.'
  The German generals don't want to end the war: they want help to fight it.
  You told me yourself that they propose to go on fighting the Russians as a
  "bulwark to communism" while making peace with the Western powers.'
 :Yes.'
  Well, what does that mean, except us helping them fight the Reds?'
  'I suppose you're right, but we can't let the Russians keep coming. They
  will have to be held back. A lot of people in America agree.'
  'Forget it. The British public wouldn't stand for it; they think Joe Stalin
  is their saviour. And the government would never try it on. No

                477
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 matter what sort of havoc the Red Army are creating for you, there's not a
 chance in hell of a separate peace without the Russians. Churchill,
 Roosevelt and Stalin spelled out their unconditionalsurrender message long
 ago. If they didn't modify that when they were losing, why the hell would
 they do so now, when they're winning?'
  It was not encouraging to listen to this man, thought Winter. If there were
  many others like him, Winter's mission was doomed to failure right from the
  start. And he had the feeling that there were a lot of others like him.

          'Love him? I detest him!'

 In another part of the city a Mercedes 320 convertible, one of the smaller
 types of staff car used by the army, went slowly along Unter den Linden. The
 lime-tree blooms smelled strong at this time of evening. There was a lot of
 traffic tonight. People were coming out of the Opera and flooding across
 Unter den Linden, oblivious of the traffic, their heads full of music. It
 was Mozart tonight. Not The Magic Flute, of course - that was banned because
 of the Masonic references - and not The Marriage of Figaro or Cosi fan
 tutti, because the libretto had been written by da Ponte, a baptized Jew.
 Tonight it was Die Entfiiihrung. Berlin audiences had always liked that, and
 it was written in a language they could understand.
  General Homer, seated in the back of the slowly moving car, looked at the
  buildings as the car went along. He could never get used to the terrible
  damage that the winter of air attacks had wrought. So much of the city had
  been destroyed, whole districts had gone, so many killed and injured, but
  even worse was the loss of confidence that these sustained air attacks had
  inflicted. Berliners being Berliners, they had met their hardships with
  smiles and jokes. But the jokes were different from the old jokes. Scratch
  a smiling Berliner and you'll find a cynic underneath, and Berlin jokes
  were becoming bitter. And the jokes were not just jokes about Hermann
  G6ring and the Luftwaffe's defence system; they were fartherranging than
  that, and they were about defeat. 'Jewish jokes', some people called them,
  and perhaps they were right.
  There were more people on the street in the evenings now that winter had
  passed. Night bombing was done by the British, and Berliners realized that
  the RAF's heavy bombers could get as far as

                478
           'Love him? I detest him!'

 this only tinder cover of the long winter nights. Now it was possible to
 get a proper night's sleep, except when sometimes light aircraft were sent
 over to drop a few bombs and sound the alarms just for the nuisance of it.
 Well, it was good tactics, he supposed. It was worth losing a small
 aircraft in exchange for having the whole city's workforce bleary-eyed
 next morning. And, as everyone knew, the British didn't lose even their
 fight aircraft. These damned RAF Mosquitoes flew too high for the
 Luftwaffe's night fighters to reach them.
  As for the Americans, they were crossing the Reich to bomb Poland in
  broad daylight! The implication was frightening: the Allies were getting
  virtual control of the air.
  Even Unter den Linden had not escaped the bombs. Kranzier Comer had been
  demolished, he noticed. He'd not sit there again, eating cream cakes and
  watching the girls strolling past, as he'd so often done with Pauli
  Winter when they were young cadets. In those days wars were fought on
  battlefronts: the enemy didn't come and destroy a man's home while he was
  hundreds of miles away fighting for his country. The effect of the
  bombing upon soldiers serving on the Russian Front was only too evident
  from the extracts and samples that the field post-office censors sent
  back for analysis. Every way he looked, reason said the war must end. And
  if there was only one way to end it, then so it be, oath to the Fiffirer
  or no oath.
 'Hurry,, driver! I told you it was urgent.'
 'Ja, Herr General.'
  After they were past Pariser Platz the traffic thinned a bit, and they
  roared through the dark Tiergarten, where the shielded headlights picked
  out a few couples strolling arm in arm, round past the Eden Hotel and the
  scaffolding where they were repairing the bomb damage to the zoo. The Zoo
  Palast cinema was emptying, and the Ku-Damin was filled with traffic-,
  the streetcars slowed everything even more. But the evening was not yet
  over, and more people were arriving here in the entertainment district.
  The dark-green Mercedes halted behind a streetcar and waited while the
  alighting passengers walked to the kerb before resuming the journey. Some
  of the streetcar passengers were dressed up: it had become difficult to
  get motor fuel for anything but important official journeys nowadays.
  His driver knew the way. He turned off at Hubertus Allee and went around
  the circle at Bismarckplatz and to the expensive little apartment block
  where Pauli Winter now lived. The driver jumped out and ran round to hold
  the door open. Damn, it was cold, thought

                479
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 Alex Horner as he got out of the car. He should have wom his overcoat.
  General Horner went and rang the bell. The janitor let him in, bowing in
  deference to the general in his uniform with the breeches and polished high
  boots, and the Knight's Cross dangling from his collar. The janitor opened
  the grille of the lift. 'Good evening, Herr General.' Alex nodded and
  pressed the button; there was a grinding noise and a lurch before the tiny
  lift went up to Pauli's apartment on the fifth floor.
 Pauli opened the door. 'Alex! Hello!'
 'Are you alone?' he asked.
 'Yes,' said Pauli. 'Come in. Inge's gone to the cinema.'
  'I can't stay, but I couldn't tell you on the phone.' Homer put his peaked
  cap on the hall stand before going into the drawing room.
 'A drink?'
  'No. Pauli - there has been another attempt on the Fiffirer's life. This
  afternoon at four o'clock. At the Berghof.'
 'It failed?'
 'Yes, it failed.'
  'I've heard nothing so far,' said Pauli. He looked at his friend
  quizzically. Was that all? Had he dashed across Berlin to tell him that
  another of the army's attempts on the Fiffirer's life had ended in failure.
 'I will have that drink,' said Alex. 'Brandy, if you have it.'
  'Sit down, Alex.' Pauli poured a glass and opened an Apollinaris water for
  himself. Ever since the SS had acquired the mineral-water company, Fritz
  Esser had arranged that everyone on his staff got crates and crates of the
  stuff.
  'It's rather complicated, Pauli. It was a demonstration for the Fdhrer - an
  antitank rocket weapon, an elaborate version of the Panzerfaust.... You
  know how he likes to be shown these things so that he can lecture all
  present and display his knowledge.'
  'Yes, I know,' said Pauli. He watched Homer drink his brandyand-soda in two
  or three gulps and put the empty glass down. Pauli lit a cigarette. For a
  moment the two men stood facing each other and not speaking. It had become
  a strange relationship. Although the deep and long-lasting friendship
  provided a fundamentally sound basis of trust, there was an element of
  bluff and double bluff, too. General Alex Homer was single-minded and at
  ease. He was loyally serving the army, and more specially the group of
  plotters to which he reported. If Himmler wanted to monitor the plot
  through Pauli

                48o
           'Love him? I detest him!'

 Winter, that was all right, for Alex was kept at arm's length from the
 plotters, just in case his old friendship proved not enough protection. And
 if Hinintler felt he was going to step in and eliminate the army's men after
 the deed was done, then he might find himself outmanoeuvred.
  Pauli XX7inter's loyalties were less easily defined. He also revered the
  army, and his training at Lichterfelde bound him to the Prussian Officer
  Corps in the same way that it bound Horner. But Pauli Winter had other
  allegiances, too: in the postwar years the Nazi regime had provided him
  with renewed self-respect, at a time when he needed help most. He'd become
  one of the party's elite, part of the state within a state. The apparatus
  that the SS-Reichsfiihrer had brought under his direct control now included
  the black-uniformed Allgemeine SS, the field-grey-uniformed Waffen-SS, the
  concentration and extermination camps, the SD intelligence organization,
  the Ministry of the Interior, the Gestapo and various police organizations
  that came tinder Himmler in his role of minister. Added to this were
  commercial companies that made everything from cheap furniture to uniforms
  and firearms.
  Himmler was now more powerful than any army general could ever have hoped
  to become, and Pauli admired the quiet, modest little Heini in his
  pince-nez and the uniform that he so liked to wear. If Himmler wanted his
  men to do nothing while the army tried to assassinate the Fiffirer, then
  Pauli would do exactly that. He had come to see the logic of it. Himmler
  had already taken over defacto control of the Third Reich ~ it was just a
  matter of time before he took over entirely. And if the SS-Reichsfiihrer
  then negotiated peace with the Western powers, doubtless he would do it
  with the same skill he'd shown in climbing to his present position.
  So Pauli Winter was able to treat Alex Horner's determination to kill the
  head of state with equanimity. And yet he would not rejoice at Hitler's
  death. He'd be saddened, as he'd been saddened at the necessary death of
  old Graf before a firing squad in the prison in Munich.
  General Horner had declined the invitation to sit down. He moved about the
  room, looking at pictures and books without actually seeing them, and
  moving his lips without speaking. Now he turned, fists pushed into the
  front pockets of his breeches and said, 'The weapons were displayed - no
  firing, of course, just a display of the prototypes - and the bomb's time
  fuse was set. The demonstration was in the SS barracks yard behind the
  Platterhof. Then, just as the

                481
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 demonstration was about to begin, the Fdhrer was called back inside the
 barracks building to take an important phone call from the Chancellery.
 You can't change the fuse once it's started.'
 'It went off?'
 'Just half a kilo or so of explosive, but the officer was badly hurt.'
 'He's not dead?'
 'No he's "being questioned", Pauli.'
  'I can do nothing for him, Alex. I really can't. I have authority to
  investigate plans for attempts against the Fiffirer's life, but this is
  something quite different. Questioning your man will be done under the
  orders of the SS officer in charge of security there. Even the Gestapo
  couldn't get access to such a prisoner until the officer there is
  satisfied that the immediate danger is past and no other bombs are
  planted in the vicinity.'
  'I didn't come to ask you to interfere at the Berghof, Pauli. But the
  trouble is that this officer has had contact with other people here in
  Berlin.'
  'You'd better get them to some area where the army have complete control:
  France might he best.'
 'One of the people was your brother.'
 'My brother? Peter? How?'
  'Peter is in Berlin. He was sent to make contact on behalf of the Western
  powers.'
 'Peter?' It was bewildering.
  'And Peter met the officer concerned. If they make him talk he will
  describe Peter. It's for you to decide, Pauli. You might want to get your
  brother out of danger.'
 'What is he doing here?'
  'He has a radio. He was to radio to London the news of the assassination
  and then remain as the liaison with the army here in Berlin. He would
  stay until the army radio established a direct link with London.'
 'Do you know where he is?'
 'In Wedding. There's no phone.'
 'No phone - how abstud.'
 'It was more secure,' explained Alex Horner.
  'And damned inconvenient. Didn't they take into account that something
  like this would happen?'
 'No, they didn't. They thought it would be successful.'
  Pauli looked at him. 'Yes, they always think it will be successful.' He
  was tempted to add some sarcastic remark about the army's

                482
           'Losie him? I detest him!'

 similar optimism, and lack of success, against the Russians, but he knew
 that Alex Horner would not welcome it, and he was too fond of Alex to erode
 their precious friendship.
  In the moments of silence that followed there was the sound of the lift
  motor. Outside on the landing the metal grille slammed, and then the voices
  got louder until Inge came into the room, and Fritz Esser followed her. He
  made some sort of joke and they both laughed.
  'General Horner?' said Inge in the stagy voice that she often adopted after
  a few drinks. 'What are you doing here?' She was dressed up: they both
  were.
  'Alex called in for a drink, darling,' said Pauli. 'But I thought you were
  going to have a late dinner and go dancing.'
  'We were,' said Inge, 'but some tiresome man brought Fritz a message." She
  looked in the mirror and touched her hair. She was forty-seven and had
  begun to tint the greying places. They'd been to see Romanze iii Moll. Inge
  loved it and identified with the doomed heroine, the unfaithful wife of a
  civil servant. But her lover - a musical genius writing a 'romance' - could
  hardly be compared to Fritz Esser. Inge was annoyed at missing the rejected
  wife's suicide, even if she had already seen the film three times. She
  smiled wanly at her reflection.
  'To the cinerna,' said Fritz after he'd greeted Horner. 'They stopped the
  film and put a slide on the screen asking me to contact the manager.'
 'What is it?' said Pauli.
  Fritz Esser looked from General Horner to Pauli and back to Horner. He
  guessed what had brought Horner here, but he went through the motions,
  since that was the way they wanted it. 'An attempt on the Fiffirer's life.
  It's not being announced officially. An army captain with a bomb. A staff
  officer, but an ex-front-line soldier: the usual Knight's Cross and all
  that ironware. The poor little swine got his arm blown off. The Fiffirer
  was inside having a shit at the time. He must have wondered what he'd eaten
  when he heard that one go off, eb?' The Fiffirer's diet of salads, and the
  chronic flatulence that resulted, was well known to those in his immediate
  circle, and Fritz laughed loudly, exposing his teeth. He'd had a great deal
  of expensive dental work done lately. At Inge's urging, his old bad,
  crooked, broken tombstones were now being systernatically replaced with
  even, regular ones. Many of them were gold.

                483
         Nineteen hundred andforty-four

 'How do you know all the details?' Pauli asked.
  'I phoned Bormann. Bormann's the only one who knows what he's doing down
  there in the Berghof. It's a circus! Those Bavarians couldn't run a candy
  store, but the Fdhrer doesn't seem to mind the way they screw everything
  up. And they're the only ones who can understand the Rihrer's accent,' said
  Fritz, and laughed again. 'Give me a drink, Pauli, will you? I'll be up
  half the night. They have the poor bastard in custody, but we'll have to
  send someone down there to investigate, just for the look of the thing. Do
  you think our pal Koch could handle it?' He looked at his watch and then
  poured the drink himself. He knew where everything was kept. 'I must go.'
  'Koch's not a very good investigator,' said Pauli. 'And he sometimes upsets
  people. Don't send him to the Berghof. I've put him behind a desk and let
  him shuffle paper. Leave him there.'
  'I'll find someone,' said Fritz, drinking his large measure of schnapps.
 'I've got to go out with Alex,' Pauli announced.
  'Where to?' asked Inge petulantly. She would be left alone, and she hated
  to be alone. That was why she stayed with Pauli and put up with this absurd
  pretence of marriage.
 'Out,' said Pauli.
  'You don't have to be so damned rude,' said Inge shrilly. Any sort of
  rejection hurt her deeply.
  'Now, now, now,' said Fritz Esser, who often found himself keeping the
  peace between them. 'Pauli never asks us where we're going, Inge, my love.
  You must let him live his own life.'
 'We should have been divorced ages ago,' she said.
  Alex Horner had picked up his cap. He stood in the hall, staring at an
  engraving of Vienna - a present from Inge for Pauli's birthday long ago -
  his face blank, as if he were not hearing the conversation.
  'Forget about divorces,' Fritz Esser told her. 'The Fdhrer doesn't approve
  of divorces: it would affect your husband's career, and maybe mine, too.'
  He grinned. This might have been a joke - it was not always possible to
  know with Fritz - but at least she could be sure that his injunction was
  sincere, and she didn't pursue the topic.
  Inge looked at Pauli with a smile that was too sweet. 'So Peter is here in
  Berlin?' she said suddenly.
 'What's that?' bellowed Fritz Esser.
  Alex Horner continued to study the engraving and Pauli said, 'Peter? In
  Berlin? No.'But Pauli had never been a very good liar, and Fritz's genuine
  surprise showed Pauli's denials for what they were.

               484
           'Love him? I detest him!'

  'I heard you talking,' said Inge. 'I came up the stairs - I can't go into
  that lift any more - and let myself in while Fritz was parking the car. I
  heard you.'
  'Yes, he's here.' Pauli's voice was devoid of emotion. It was the voice
  he'd. used so often during the rows they'd had.
 'Is that where you're goirg?' she asked.
 'Yes,' said Pauli. 'I'm going to see my brother.'
 'Are you going to tell him that Lottie is dead?'
 'I don't know.'
  'Murdered by American bombs: make sure he understands that,' she said
  cruelly.
 Pauli looked at her. Poor Inge. 'Do you still love him?' he asked.
 'Love him? I detest him!'
 'Like you detest me?' Pauli asked her.
 'Yes, like I detest you.'
  Fritz Esser gulped his schnapps, put the glass on the table, grabbed Inge
  by the arm, and shook her so hard that her teeth snapped together. 'Now,
  you listen to me, you silly girl,' he said. 'This is state business, not
  romantic stories from the ladies' magazines. You keep your mouth shut.' He
  shook her roughly. 'Tight shut! You mention the name of Peter Winter and
  I'll beat the daylights out of you. Understand, you little bitch?'
  Fritz released his grip on her arm and she backed away from him fearfully,
  rubbing the arm where he'd hurt her. To Pauli's surprise, Inge smiled - a
  bitter srrule, but a smile nevertheless. 'You make everything so clear,
  Fritz darling,' she said.
  'She'll be all right, Pauli,' Fritz assured him without even looking at
  her. 'You get going and do what you have to do. Where is he?'
 'Where is he?' Pauli in turn asked Alex Horner.
  Homer hesitated and then said, 'Wedding: an apartment block, between Saint
  Josef's Church and the subway station.'
  'I need to know, if I'm to keep the bloodhounds away from you,' explained
  Fritz Esser without saying how he intended to do it.
  'The officer held in custody - the injured one at the Berghof - has met
  Peter,' said Pauli.
  'Don't worry about him,' said Fritz. 'He's already taken care of. He
  glanced at General Horner, but Horner remained as stiff as a rod, in that
  tense and formal military attitude that the Germans call zackig.
  Pauli looked at Homer, too, and felt embarrassed. There was no doubt what
  Fritz meant: plans had been put under way to ensure that

                485
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 the officer died as quickly as possible and so obviate any chance of further
 complications. General Horner understood, of course - he was not a fool -
 but he gave no sign of emotion.
  'Go to bed, Inge,'Fritz Esser said; when she remained in the room fidgeting
  with the empty glasses, as if trying to decide whether to clear them away,
  he said, 'Did you hear me? I said go to bed.'
  'Yes,, Fritz. Goodnight, General Horner.' Horner bowed without a word.
  'Goodnight Pauli.'
 'Goodnight, Inge.'
  'And keep that big mouth of yours shut,' said Fritz before she could say
  goodnight to him. To the others he said, 'Come along. I take it you've got
  a car, Alex?'
 'Yes, I have.'
  'Good luck to you both,' said Fritz. 'It's going to be a damned long
  night.'

        'Who was the Swedish fellow?'

 The Bodensee is a large gloomy-looking lake that forms the boundary between
 southwestern Germany and the Germanspeaking cantons of Switzerland. Its
 waters are frequently inade dangerous by storms that spring up quickly from
 the snow-tipped Alps that serrate the southern horizon. From Friedrichshafen
 - a small town on the German side - a ferryboat goes regularly to the Swiss
 town of Romanshorn. This June evening the air had turned suddenly cooler,
 and the water had the curious milky look that local people say is the
 presage of a storm. The air was full of tiny flying insects, and there were
 birds swooping low over the smooth lake water preying upon them. The threat
 of rain had kept everyone indoors except two men. The waterfront was theirs
 alone.
  The men were strolling along under the trees. One was shortish, plump, and
  in his mid-forties. An untidy-looking fellow, he wore a good suit of the
  same black worsted as lawyers favour throughout the world. His blond hair
  was going white, and he moved his hands a lot as he spoke. The other man
  was slightly older, a thin-faced man with eyeglasses; he was shabbily
  dressed but tall and slim, and he carried himself more gracefully, the way
  an actor or a dancer might walk. When they got to the wall, they turned and
  started coming back towards the big black BMW with the Berlin registration
  plates that was parked near the church.

                486
         'Who was the Swedish fellow?'

  'The immigration officer on this side is named Schanz,' Pauli told his
  brother. 'A tall fellow with a moustache ... about sixty years old. He used
  to work for Papa at the factory here in town. He's friendly. Tell him you
  are going to Switzerland for the company. If there's any trouble I will
  intercede, but let's hope it will be all right without me.'
 'I don't want to get you into trouble,' Peter said.
 'I can look after myself,' said Pauli.
 'I wouldn't have got out of Berlin without you.'
 'Who was the Swedish fellow?'
 'A seaman. He was trying to sell me tins of butter and bacon.'
 'He slipped away very quietly,' said Pauli.
 'Black market. He was afraid of getting picked up, I suppose.'
 'I thought I knew his face,' said Pauli.
 'Perhaps he's sold you butter and bacon.'
  Pauli smiled. 'That must be it.' He looked across the water again. They
  were on the strand near the Schlosskirche, at the very spot where Mama had
  sat in Papa's wonderful Italian motorcar watching the zeppelins so many
  years ago. Where was the old car now? Pauli wondered. In a museum, perhaps.
  Once, during the Berlin fighting in igig, he'd glimpsed it driving through
  the Tiergarten with half a dozen soldiers piled in it. 'You say you'll be
  all right on the other side.... If you have any trouble there, ask for a
  man named Becheler. He's a police inspector who is always somewhere near
  the customs office. Tell him you know me. He's a sullen young bastard, but
  we pay him.'
 :The Gestapo?'
  Yes. He helps us from time to time. His parents live in Innsbruck: he won't
  do anything that might upset us,' said Pauli ominously.
  Peter looked at his pocket watch - a cheap steel one, but it worked all
  right, just as London said it would. 'The boat will be leaving soon. I wish
  you'd come, too, Pauli.'
 We've been through all th2t, Peter.'
  I wish you'd come. I could make it all right for you, whatever you've
  done.'
  Good griefl How could Peter be urging his younger brother to flee from his
  native land and join his country's enemies? Surely it would make more sense
  for Peter to stay here and let Pauli protect him. The world was turning
  upside down. 'I've done nothing I'm ashamed of,' said Pauli.
 Peter looked at his brother. He wished he could make Pauli

                487
         Nineteen hundred and fort~-four

 understand what was waiting for the SS and the Gestapo and all Himmler's
 minions. 'They hate us, Pauli.'
 'Who? The Americans?'
  'Everyone hates us. No one respects the Germans any longer. They call us
  names - Krauts, Huns, Boches, Jerries - and they despise us.'
  'We'll see about that when we've won the war,' said Pauli defiantly.
  Pauli's childish optimism irritated Peter. He wanted to shake sense into
  him. 'The war is lost, Pauli. Surely you must see that by now.'
 'Is it, Peter?'
  Poor Pauli. He looked lost. Peter had always taken his brother's respect,
  love and loyalty for granted; perhaps he'd not given enough in return.
  Perhaps none of the family had. Suddenly he felt protective of his
  younger brother in a way he'd never felt before. He put an arm round
  Pauli's shoulder and said gently, 'God knows what is going to happen to
  Germany. Come with me! What have you got to stay here for?'
  'Nothing. I've lost Inge-, I have no children; Father won't permit me in
  his house. But I can't go with you. I'm too old to adapt to another
  country and another language. Too old and too stupid. I'll stay with
  Mama. She'll need comforting when Father dies. He won't last another
  winter; the doctor told Mama that.'
  'The boat is coming now. I wish I could have seen him ... and Mama.
  Perhaps you could find some wav of telling her.'
 'The fewer people who know, the better, Peter.'
  'I suppose you're right. But it's terrible to think I may never see him
  again.'
  'I didn't want to argue with Father, but he blamed me for things that
  were not my fault. It wasn't fair.'
 'He's old, Pauli. And old people become crotchety.'
 'I did what I could.'
 'I'm sure you did, Pauli. We'd better go along to the pier.'
  Pauh stopped strolling. He turned to his brother and said, 'I loved
  Lottie. I really loved her.'
 'I'm sure you did, Pauli. No one blames you for anything.'
 'You don't understand: I loved her!'
 'We must go, Pauli. rhe ferryboat is almost here.'
  'If she'd stayed at Lisl Hennig's she would have been all right, but she
  was feeling low, and Lisl's little boy said he'd take her to the

                488
         'Who was the Swedish fellow?'

 cinema. She never went out, but it was a colour film, a musical. Little Theo
 said it would cheer her up.'
  Peter closed his eyes and tried not to hear Pauli's words. It was too
  painful. 'You told me.'
  'And then the Americans came over. It was a bad raid. They both must have
  died instantly: the whole cinema got it - a direct hit.'
  Peter opened his eyes to look at his brother. 'No one blames you, Pauli.
  It's the war. I understand.' Peter had forced the news of Lottie's death
  into some dark recess of his mind. He'd grieve for her at another time and
  in another place.
 'I would have done anything, Peter. You know that.'
 'I know, Pauli.'

            'There is a zisitor'

 'Me big house in downtown New York City had become something of a curiosity,
 for all around it were tall apartment blocks and office buildings. In a
 bedroom on the second floor of the old house, Cyrus Rensselaer was in bed.
 He was ninety-three years old and in amazing physical shape for a man of his
 years. Almost every day he got up and, with a little help from a servant,
 got dressed and came downstairs in the newly installed elevator to have
 luncheon. But for the last two weeks he'd not managed that feat. He'd
 remained in bed and had TheNew York Timesand The Wal/StreetJournal read to
 him. He'd eaten only soft-boiled eggs and a little chicken soup with dry
 toast. The doctor visited him every day. At first he'd said that his patient
 was in fine shape, but on the Tuesday Cyrus Rensselaer grew
 weaker.
  He liked to have the mail brought up to him. Sometimes there was a letter
  from Glenn. It didn't say very much, of course - Glenn had never been very
  good about writing letters, and now that he was engaged in secret work in
  England, his letters were both short and uninformative. A couple of times
  he'd said that all the family could be proud of Peter Winter, and once,
  very recently, he'd written to say that Peter was in England, safe and
  sound. But since they'd never heard that Peter was out of England, or in
  danger, this letter of reassurance meant little to anyone.
  On Friday morning Cyrus Rensselaer received the sort of letter he liked: a
  big fat letter from an old friend who'd been on a business trip to
  Portugal. This long letter, written in a bold, flowing hand on a

                489
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

 dozen sheets of bright-blue airmail paper, contained all sorts of
 information about European people, places and corporations known to Cyrus.
 The latest doings of his business rivals were catalogued there, and near
 the end his friend had written: '. . . no one gets to Berlin these days,
 but I met a fellow who told me that Harald Winter's funeral was something
 of an event in that miserable town. Your daughter, Veronica, was there and
 looking well, I'm delighted to tell you, but you probably know all this
 already.'
  Cyrus put the letter down. So Harald had died. Soon the war would be over
  and Veronica would come home. Life would be better then. He'd be back on
  his feet once Veronica was in the house again. He could clearly remember
  the sounds of her voice from the days when she was a child. Singing and
  chattering - such a noisy little girl. He smiled at the memory. The house
  had never been the same since she'd gone off to college. There was so
  much to talk to her about.
  They found Cyrus Rensselaer dead when they took his light lunch to the
  bedroom. His eyeglasses were still on his nose; he'd died peacefully. The
  blue sheets of writing paper had fallen to the floor. Some people who
  read the letter thought that perhaps the news of his son-in-law's funeral
  had killed him, but more perceptive people said that he'd died happy
  knowing that his old enemy Harald had gone before him.
  The news of Cyrus Rensselaer's death reached London more quickly than the
  news of Harald Winter's death had crossed the Atlantic Ocean. For Cyrus
  Rensselaer was a name known to the world of business and beyond. In
  London an obituary appeared in The Times and in The Financial Times, too.
  The Economist ran a short article about 'A Wizard of Wall Street'. But
  it took m,ich longer for Glenn to find out that the old man's fortune had
  been made over to his wife, Dot. For Glenn there was no more than a small
  annuity, and for Veronica, who, as his will said, had never returned to
  her homeland, there was nothing at all.
  In London that long and anxious summer of 1944, Glenn Rensselaer and
  Peter Winter were too occupied to spend much time with condolences,
  mourning, or celebration. June 6 was D-Day, when the Anglo-American
  armies invaded France, and Germany had the two-front war that most
  strategists thought must prove fatal.
  Colonel Rudolf von Kleindorf had been amongst the first to encounter the
  newly arrived foe. He was the commander of a battalion that was engaged
  close to the beach in the early hours of the battle. On the. day
  following D-Day, he made a personal reconnais-
  
                490
            'There is a visitor'

 sance of the ground to the south of Omaha Beach, where the American assault
 had gone very wrong. It was easy to get lost in the leafy, hedge-lined
 lanes, and the German defenders were under constant attack by Allied fighter
 planes, which ground-strafed anything that moved. In one such low-level
 attack, von Kleindorf s armoured car was hit by machine-gun bullets and went
 off the road and overturned. He and his driver spent four hours hiding in a
 shell crater, hoping to get back to their own lines under cover of darkness.
  But darkness comes very late in a June evening in Normandy. Advancing
  American infantrv captured the two men, and a corporal took from Kleindorf
  his medals, his gold signet ring with the Kleindorf family crest, and his
  wristwatch and stuffed them in the pocket of his jacket. When von Kleindorf
  objected vociferously to this theft of' his personal possessions, an
  infantry soldier named Weinberger from Chicago swore at him in fluent,
  colloquial Berlin German before hitting him in the face with a rifle butt,
  causing Kleindorf to suffer a broken jaw, broken nose, broken cheek bones,
  some lost teeth and multiple cuts and bruises. He was left unconscious at
  the roadside, and the infantry platoon moved forward again.
  The armies of the Western Powers had broken through the 'Atlantic Wall'
  without pausing. The Anglo-American navies permitted no German ship within
  striking distance of the vast invasion fleet that filled the Channel, and
  the sky belonged to their air forces. Two weeks later, on June 20, the Red
  Army's surnmer offensive began on the Eastern Front. The Red Army smashed
  into Army Group Centre, where the German army's power was concentrated. The
  German. Front gave way, and Poland and the German Reich were laid open to
  the Russian advance.
  On July 20 the army conspirators tried again to kill Adolf Hitler. Another
  of the English-made bombs obtained from Abwehr sources was exploded by time
  fuse during a conference at the 'Wolf s Lair' at Rastenburg in East
  Prussia. This attempt was only marginally more successful than all the
  previous ones. Hitler was injured, but survived and maintained control of
  his regime.
  This time, however, the conspirators bungled not only the assassination but
  the seizure of power, too. The messages, proclamations and orders that had
  been so carefully prepared by the plotters were not issued. It was a hot,
  humid day in Berlin, and in the offices and corridors of the Replacement
  Army in the Bendlerblock, officers stood around discussing what to do and
  waiting for orders

               491
         Nineteen hundred andfarty-four

 that did not come. No attempt was made to seize the radiobroadcasting
 offices or the post, telephone and telegram service. No one arrested Nazi
 ministers, and Berlin's chief of police, who was a party to the
 conspiracy, waited in vain for orders to act.
  Only after Count von Stauffenberg - who had put the bomb alongside Hitler
  - returned to Berlin did the coup attempt start. By that time it was too
  late. News had reached Berlin that Hitler was alive and kicking. Now the
  conspiracy fell to pieces, and soon the notorious basement of the Gestapo
  building in Prinz-AlbrechtStrasse was filled with high-ranking army
  officers. The questioning to which they were subjected was hurried and
  ruthless. Shorthand clerks wrote rapidly while the professional torturers
  performed their tasks.
  None of the men involved got anything resembling a fair trial: it was
  feared that the opportunities for public speaking might incite others to
  resist the regime. At the Volksgerichtshof - the People's Court - the
  accused were not tried; they were simply abused and reviled, a process
  in which the so-called defence lawyers joined. Conspirators were
  tortured, sentenced and executed by such barbarous methods as slow
  strangulation. Generals and field marshals were hung from meathooks by
  piano wire and filmed in their death agonies so that Adolf Hitler could
  have the satisfaction of seeing them die many times over. Not only the
  guilty were made to suffer. Relatives and friends in the thousands were
  executed or sent to concentration camps. Many died simply because they
  had the same name as one of the accused.
  General Alex Horner's assignment to command an army corps in
 France took him away from Berlin and the attempted putsch. When
 news of it came, I Horner - a corps commander - was desperately
 trying to counter General Bradley's breakthrough of the front at
 Saint Ld and stem General Patton's Third Army, which came
 charging through the gap. Constantly aware of the risk that his name
 might be revealed by the continuing interrogations of his fellow
 officers in Berlin, and knowing that his superior, Field Marshal
 Kluge, was a suspect, Alex Horner nevertheless gave all his attention
 to the battlefield. But every night he found a few minutes to write a
 letter to his wife, Chrisi, and always he drew at the bottom of the
 page
 some silly picture for his six-year-old son, Christian.
  It was warm this evening, so warm that he could smell the ripe cherries
  on the trees of the orchard in which he was bivouacked. Even through the
  green canvas, the flashes of a new American

               492
            'There is a visitor'

 artillery bombardment lit his tent. And the noise of the gunfire came like
 thunder; sometimes the explosions were so close together that it was
 impossible to distinguish one from another.
  He'd finished writing his letter when young Winkel came into the tent.
  'Herr General?'
  'Yes, Winkel. What is it?' The boy was getting to look exactly like his
  father. Too much beer, that was the trouble. No matter: the days of beer
  and roses had gone, never to return.
 'There isa visitor.'
 'Who?'
 'A general, an SS-Gruppenfiffirer.'
  The SS officer pushed post Winkel. 'General Homer?' he said brusquely. His
  face registered surprise, but Alex Horner was used to that.
  Forty-five-year-old generals were not yet a common sight, even in this new
  age of National Socialism.
 'Yes?'
  'Heil Hitler,' said the officer, extending his arm in the salute that,
  since the bomb attempt on Hitler's life, had become mandatory for the army
  as well as the SS.
  'Good evening" said Horner, remaining seated. He licked the flap of the
  envelope. 'What is iff
  'I'm bringing my division up on your left tomorrow, General.' Horner was
  senior to him in tank and was his corps commander, but the newcomer called
  him'General', not'Herr General'. That was the SS style: they did it amongst
  themselves and to the army, too. He was about sixty years old,
  clean-shaven, with a bony nose in a long leathery face that had rounded and
  wrinkled with time. He spoke in the thick, inarticulate mumble of Bavaria.
  On his head he had a well-worn 'Africa Corps'-style cap at a jaunty angle;
  he wore the mottled camouflage smock that was issued only to the Waffen-SS,
  and the SS insignia and his rank badge were crudely stencilled on its
  collar. He had a pistol on his hip and laced high boots that were
  nonregulation. Despite his age, he looked like a fighting soldier or a
  brigand. Horner looked at him but was not impressed. Some of them chose to
  look like infantry veterans, but it meant nothing: generals won battles by
  using their brains, and a pistol on the hip got in the way when you were
  leaning over a map table.
 'Yes, I was expecting you two days ago,' said Homer.
 'There were unforeseen transportation problems.'
 'Have a drink,' said Horner.
 'Is that real French brand~?'

                493
         Nineteen hundred and forty-four

  'Bring two glasses, Winkel,' Horner called. He knew that his driver would
  be picking cherries as an excuse to eavesdrop, but Winkel knew how to
  hold his tongue, so Horner tolerated his nosiness. To the newcomer Horner
  said, 'Where have you come from?'
  'Northern Italy: near Milan. We were in reserve, trying to get ourselves
  sorted out. We took a pounding on the Eastern Front. We're nowhere near
  full strength.'
 'Panzer grenadiers?'
  'On paper.' Winke I brought the glasses and the two men looked at each
  other as they drank. The new man had small, active eyes: cunning?
  piglike? Or was Horner too prejudiced against these political soldiers?
  He didn't relish the prospect of having a WaffenSS division in his corps,
  despite their undoubted capacity for battle. Waffen-SS units had a
  tiresome habit of ignoring orders when it didn't suit them: of occupying
  towns they were ordered not to enter, and failing to entei ones they were
  told to attack. The SSGruppenfillirer drank some cognac and wiped his
  mouth on the back of his hand. 'That's good stuff.' And then, 'But we'll
  manage, General; my boys know how to fight.'
  'As long as you don't think it's easy here,' said Horner. 'The Americans
  are youngand inexperienced. Sometimes they are stupid, and they continue
  to make a lot of mistakes, but they have youthful energy and boldness,
  too, and they learn fast. More important, they seem to have an endless
  supply of everything. It's different from the Eastern Front, but don't
  think it's easier.'
  'My men will hold your line for you.' Horner noted the way that these SS
  soldiers would be holding 'his' line 'for him'. The man helped himself
  to another brandy without asking for it. It was often said that Prussians
  were too cold and aloof but, faced with a fellow like this, it was
  difficult for Horner to resist his father's theory that all Bavarians
  were stupid, hostile, sour-faced pigs.
 'I'm sure they will,' said Horner.
  'The "fire brigade", they call us. We rush from front to front, wherever
  the army need help. And we fight to the last bullet.'
  'One thing must be understood, Herr Gruppenfiihrer,' Horner said coldly.
  'I don't want any shooting of prisoners. There'll be no atrocities on my
  sector of front.'
  'These things happen,'said the SS-Gruppenfijhrer. 'My men fight to win.'
 'If they happen on my front there will be a field court-martial.'

               494
            'There is a visitor'

 'Right. No shooting of prisoners.'
  'I hope you understand, Herr Gruppenfdhrer. I will court-martial any
  officer who disobeys my orders. Whatever his rank.'
 'You don't recognize me, do you, General Homer?'
  Horner's life had been crowded with faces, fleeting glimpses of men of all
  ranks, shapes and sizes, but he'd never had command of an SS division
  before. He stared at the man. 'No, I don't, Herr Gruppenfiffirer.'
  'Brand is the name; General Heinrich Brand, Crazy Heini! I was teaching you
  about trench warfare when you were scarcely out of your nappies and bibs.'
  Yes, it was Brand. He'd changed a lot, but Horner should have recognized
  those mad, constantly moving eyes. What bad luck to meet up with that
  insolent swine again after all these years. 'You'd better start moving up
  into position right away,' said Horner.
 'My men are still arriving.'
  'You'll need the cover of darkness. In this sector, enemy air activity is
  fierce as soon as there's light enough for them to see. They come in
  relays, squadron after squadron ... rocket-firing planes, sometimes.
  Anything that's moving will be attacked. And it's like that all day.'
 'Where's the damned Luftwaffe?'
  'They have unforeseen transportation problems, too.' said Homer. 'They get
  shot down every time they come near.'
 'My flak .
  'Never mind trying to stem the air attacks - leave that for the day
  following,' said Horner sarcastically. 'Just get your forward positions in
  place before daylight. We're all ready for you-, we're considerably
  overextended. I have an officer fully briefed; I'll send him with you. Do
  as he says. You'll have to keep them all moving.'
 'I don't need any help,' said Brand.
  'I didn't ask if you needed help,' said Horner. 'I said I'll send one of my
  staff officers with you. I'll expect you to be holding the frontline
  positions by dawn.'
 'That's not much time,' said Brand.
 'It's the regular army procedure,' said Horner, to goad him more.
 'Where's the officer?'
  'WinkelP called Horner. 'I want you to take the Herr General to the command
  post.' To Brand he said, 'Send a runner when you are in position. Then come
  to the staff conference at 073o hours.'
  'Yes, Herr General,' said Brand. He bared his teeth in a fierce smile.

               495
           'A very proud parent'

 Veronica Winter peeped into the room that Harald Winter had used as a study
 ever since ihey'd moved in. The room was little changed from the way it had
 been just after they married. Everything was in place: Harry's library; the
 valuable carpets, now a little worn; and the wonderful inlaid desk where
 Pauli was sitting. He'd been sitting there for nearly half an hour, trying
 to summon up the courage or the will, or whatever it was he needed, to
 unlock his father's desk and sort out his private papers.
  Pauli would have given almost anything to have someone else do this sad
  task. His mother refused to go through Harald's desk. He supposed she
  dreaded finding love letters, or other compromising material, from Harald's
  notorious love affairs. Veronica had taken her husband's death stoically.
  She'd loved him with that tenderness and loyalty that her generation were
  taught a provider deserved. Though she wept for him, Harry's death marked
  the end of her bondage.
  Pauli noticed the new strength of his mother, but he could not account for
  it. He took it for granted that Veronica would be as devastated by Harald
  Winter's death as he was. Often, ever since he was a small child, he'd
  wondered how he would cope with his father's death. At one time it had been
  the ultimate nightmare. But always he'd comforted himself with the thought
  that, when the time came, it would be Peter's duty.
  He took his father's keys and put the tiny one into the lock. How familiar
  those keys were to him. Ever since Pauli could remember, Papa had worn them
  on the gold chain that stretched across his waistcoat. -Now the keys and
  the chain were his, but Pauli didn't enjoy handling them.
  Methodically he started going through the desk: onyx cuff links in a tiny
  box bearing the name of a Paris jeweller; a horn-handled letter opener; a
  Zeiss magnifying glass held alongside a spare pair of eyeglasses by a thick
  rubber band; an ivory slide rule worn and discoloured from constant use; a
  small calfskin address book that fitted Papa's waistcoat pockets, filled
  with Papa's tiny writing; letters put back into their envelopes with
  pencilled notes on the outside-, deeds of the house, a carbon copy of a
  letter about Harry's shares in the Winter companies, and a long agreement
  about the partnership signed by all the directors and affixed with a red
  wax seal-, photo postcards of all the old zeppelins, one of them bearing a
  note and a

                496
            'A very proud parent'

 complex signature of the old Count; a sepia studio photo of Veronica before
 they were married.
  Pauli went through everything piece by piece, trying not to think about the
  father he would never see again, trying not to wonder where the
  relationship had started to go wrong. What did Harald expect of him? What
  does any father expect of his son? Far, far too much. If Harald had just
  taken Pauli's love and respect for what they were worth, and thanked God
  for a loyal and trusting son, it would have all been wonderful. But for
  Pauli life with Harald Winter had been one long, unrelenting examination.
  Their relationship had always been a series of tests, invented, conducted
  and judged with Godlike impartiality by Harald Winter in person.
  At the back of the desk were four large plainly bound books, their leather
  covers showing varying degrees of wear. At first glance they might have
  been ledgers, which is why Pauli, who was not very skilled at reading
  accounts, left them to last. But when he opened the heavy pages he was in
  for the biggest surprise of his life. They were scrapbooks. Neatly pasted
  onto each page were newspaper and magazine cuttings. There were photos,
  too, and even a couple of signed menus and a home-made birthday card that
  nine-year-old Pauli had sent to his father so many years ago.
  The four books contained what was virtually a history of Pauli's life.
  School reports from Lichterfelde, letters he'd written from the trenches,
  newspaper cuttings reporting his graduation from law school. Newspaper
  photos of Pauli's magnificent wedding. There were even tiny cuttings from
  the SS newspaper that announced each of Pauli's promotions and his honorary
  appointment to SS rank. He didn't know that his father had even seen a copy
  of Das Schwarze Ko?ps, let alone got a copy and cut it up. Pauli was
  astounded. He read the four books all the way through. There were some
  cuttings and mementoes concerning Peter, but it was mostly about Pauli. And
  there was nothing to cast a shadow upon Pauli's career. It was the sort of
  thing that only a very proud parent would compile.

 497
           IL945M
           les a labour of lam'

 In the middle of January 1945, the Red Army launched the greatest Russian
 offensive of the war. One hundred and eighty divisions were used in an
 attack that within two weeks cut East Prussia away from the Reich and gave
 the Russians the Silesian industrial region, which supplied most of the coal
 and steel for Germany's war effort.
  Adolf Hitler's command post had been moved back to the Reichskanzlei and
  the bunker under it. On January ig, Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress, and
  Martin Bormarm arrived from the Obersalzberg to be with him. On the
  afternoon of January 27, maps on the wall of the newly equipped Berlin
  operations room were revised to show that reconnaissance units of Zhukov's
  Red Army's spearheads had crossed the river Oder and were now only a
  hundred miles from the city. As the month ended, Hitler made one of his
  rare excursions: he went to tea with Dr Josef Goebbels at the Goebbels home
  at Schwanenwerder, an island in the Havel. Distrustful of poisoners, Hitler
  took with him a vacuum flask of tea and a bag of biscuits.
  On that same day, in Weissensee, on the other side of Berlin, another
  doctor was entertaining colleagues to tea. There was no funeral that day in
  Berlin's big Jewish cemetery. Dr Isaac Volkmann, who'd once been a highly
  regarded dentist in the town, was celebrating his birthday. For some years
  Volkmann had worked as a gravedigger here, and he was grateful to God for
  his opportunity to survive. He'd brought a handful of tea with him today.
  Not real tea, of course - a mixture of mint leaf and other herbs that
  Germans had learned to drink without complaint.
  Volkmann had a lot to be grateful for. He went home each night to his wife
  and his baby son, and the hard work of digging and working as a general
  labourer came more easily to him than it did to some of the others.
  Volkmann had always been stocky and muscular. At college he'd excelled at
  games: hockey, rowing and athletics. For

                498
            ws a labour of love'

 some of the others it was more difficult. There was Benjamin the rabbi, with
 his arthritic shoulder; old Simon 'the professor' who'd had a chair in
 physics at Frankfurt an der Oder, with his bronchial cough that left him
 gasping for breath; and Dr Sigmund Weiss, who was frightened to go to
 hospital with his chest pains in case he was taken straight off to a camp.
  It was three other men who did most of the digging. They were younger,
  working-class lads who'd grown up to the prospect of such hard work. The
  only misfit was the seventh man, the strange Boris Soml6, who was the most
  awkward fellow there. Dr Volkmann wondered about Soml6. He was officially
  known as 'Fromm', but Volkmann had seen his real name on an old Austrian
  driving licence that had fallen from his pocket one day. It dated from
  before the Anschluss and was no longer valid. The man was a fool to keep
  it. There had been photos, too, all of them of a woman who looked very like
  him. It must have been his mother.
  The mystery about the furtive Boris Som16 was that he once said his father
  wasn't a Jew. As aMischling he could probably have lived and worked a more
  normal life, without persecution. It wasn't absolutely necessary for him to
  work here in the cemetery. It wasn't the difference between life and death,
  as it was for the rest of them. Dr Weiss said it was a disgrace. Weiss said
  that Boris should get out, and so provide a safe place f6i some real Jew
  who was in danger, but Boris said that he'd been on a transportation train
  and he didn't want to risk it again. No one believed him, but that was his
  story. Transportation train: no one got off transportation trains and came
  back to tell the tale. It had taken a long time to comprehend fully what
  was happening to the Jewish families who went off to be ,resettled in the
  East', but who never wrote letters or postcards to say they'd arrived. Now
  they knew, however, and they knew that no one ever came back. That's why i
  hey didn't believe Boris.
  Isaac Volkmann was the only one who befriended Boris at the cemetery. He
  felt sorry for him. Although over forty years old, Boris was an unlucky
  bungler who seemed unable to organize for himself such things as clean
  linen or even regular shaves. He was - said the others, when Boris was out
  ofearshot - a shlemiel.
  Boris's helpless demeanour might not have made him such a figure of fun had
  it not been for that dreadful Viennese accent, a nasal whine that made even
  Isaac Volkmann grin sometimes, despite his determination not to make the
  poor chap's life more difficult.
 But today, with mugs of hot tea in their hands and the door closed

                499
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

 against the awful Berlin cold, they were all in a good mood. Volkmann looked
 round at them. They were good men, although none of them had had what he
 would regard as proper dental care. The~ stood in the shed behind the
 mortuary that afternoon talking y
 about the Russian advance - or, rather, about the rumours of it, for none of
 them had heard anything about the Red Army's crossing of the Oder on the
 German radio at first hand. Perhaps some had heard the BBC, but none would
 admit to it, even to these close friends and fellow sufferers.
  What would they do if the Russians got here, to Berlin? It was still 'if',
  despite the closeness of the enemy. 'The Russians are barbarians,'said Dr
  Weiss, who had a cousin in the army. 'They will kill everyone if they get
  here.'
  'Not us,' said the professor, 'not Jews.' The revolution in Russia had been
  founded upon the intellect and dynamism of the Jews. 'The Red Army will not
  harm Jews.'
 'How will they know who are Jews?' asked Dr Weiss.
  'We must not be afraid,' said Benjamin the rabbi. He was the last rabbi
  alive and free in the whole of Berlin. For all he knew, he was the last
  surviving rabbi in the whole of Germany. He was always cheerful.
  It was while they are talking that Boris went to the metal lockers in the
  side room where the men kept their street clothes. He unlocked the door of
  his locket and reached inside for a brown paper parcel. They watched him in
  silence as he laboriously untied the string around the parcel. Inside it
  was what appeared to be a bundle of bright-red cloth. He took it by one
  edge and, holding it high, let the other end fall to the floor.
  There was a gasp of surprise, and of fear, too, when they saw what he
  displayed. It was a full-size red flag, complete with harnmer and sickle.
 'Where did you get this?' asked Dr Weiss.
 'I made it,' said Boris.
  There was no laughing at his accent now. Weiss leaned over and touched the
  hem of the flag as if it might explode. 'You made it?'
  They could all see now that it had been assembled from small pieces of
  cloth sewn together with remarkable skill. The hammerand-sickle insignia
  was put together from bright-yellow cloth that shone like gold. Thousands
  of tiny stitches had gone into the effort. It was a labour of lovc, and the
  professor respectfully said so.
 'When they come, we will fly it from the flagpole,' said Boris.
 'It's a labour of love,' repeated the professor.

                500
            Ves a labour of love'

 'They'll know then,' said Boris.
  'Put it away quickly,' said Benjamin the rabbi, who was by common consent
  the voice of authority and wisdom. 'Good work, Boris. Now put it away until
  we need it.'
  'Good work, Boris,' said the others. There was a new respect in their
  voices. Who would have guessed that such a slow lugubrious fellow could
  have fashioned that magnificent flag in secret, and brought it here without
  their knowing?
  But Isaac Volkmann now thought he saw a reason for the Mischling's
  exaggerated fears, and his change of name. He guessed that Boris Som16 had
  been an active member of the Conununist Party in Austria before the
  Anschluss. If that was the case, his fears made sense.

          'It doesn't look like goll

 For any superstitious Nazi like Fritz Esser, Friday, April 13, 1945,
 fulfilled its awful promise. The U.S. Army was across the Berlin Dessau
 autobahn, and from Bendlerstrasse there came the order to destroy the army's
 two explosives factories, which were imminently threatened by the American
 advance. These were the army's last two powder factories; there would be no
 more ammunition for the German guns.
  Berlin was a maze of fires and bombed buildings. The Chancellery was badly
  damaged - Hitler was in the bunker - and in the nearby Adlon Hotel, Louis
  Adlon walked through scorched carpeting, shattered mirror, and broken
  brickwork to see what might be salvaged of what had once been the most
  magnificent hotel in Europe. Potsdamer Platz was unrecognizable, its trees
  gone and surrounding hotels and offices gutted. The famous Messel fa~ade of
  Wertheims department store was no more. Most of the ministries had already
  begun to move their documents and personnel out of Berlin. Hitler's
  personal staff had gone to the Obersalzberg to prepare for his arrival
  there on April 20, his fifty-sixth birthday. A cake was made ready: Adolf
  Hitler loved cakes.
  The morning of Friday, April 13, dawned blood-red. The RAF squadrons that
  had lit up the skies with marker flares, and the ground with their
  phosphorus bombs and high explosive, had gone. In the street Fritz Esser,
  in his big six-wheel Mercedes, steered carefully around the huge mountains
  of old rubble and fresh

                501
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

 wreckage. He was on his way to pick up Pauli Winter. Public transport could
 no longer be relied upon, although the efforts of the transport workers were
 almost superhuman. Esser's car passed a large group of children - fourteen-,
 fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds -straggling along Keith Strasse towards their
 homes in badly damaged Schbneberg. It had been a bad night: some were to
 find their homes had disappeared. They were dressed in absurdly ill-fitting
 uniforms and carried helmets too heavy for them to wear comfortably on their
 heads. They were the schoolchildren lately assigned to crew the heavy
 anti-aircraft pns in Tiergarten. The last of the children were crossing
 Cornelius Bridge. Under it the Landwehr Canal was dry, the machinery that
 controlled its flow bombed and useless.
  Fritz Esser stopped his car and backed up. He felt a sudden impulse to give
  the children something: they looked so pathetic. They stared at the car -
  it was the same model that the Fiffirer had used in the days when he could
  be seen riding through the city. They realized that Esser must be a
  high-ranking official. They grouped around him respectfully. In the boot of
  the car was a large box of chocolates that he'd obtained for Inge. He gave
  them to the children and they ate them ravenously. Some of them had never
  seen chocolate before. One pale-faced fifteen-year-old, discovering the
  taste for the first time, laughed as if someone had played a joke upon him,
  as, in a way, the little Austrian corporal had played a joke upon all of
  them. Fritz laughed, too. What else was there to do except cry?

 'Goebbels is still sitting in his office in Wilhelmsplatz, drinking
 champagne,' said Fritz. He was in the car with Pauli, outside the Interior
 Ministry building. They were waiting for the offices to open and the staff
 to arrive. 'He phoned the Fiffirer and told him that it was written in the
 stars that mid-April would see a change in our fortunes. He says the death
 of Roosevelt corresponds to the death of the Tsarina during the Seven Years'
 War, and it will bring victory to the Fiffirer as it did to Frederick the
 Great.'
  'I'm sure that went down well,'said Pauli. The door-man came out and opened
  up the ministry at exactly 8:3o a.m. and an organ grinder began playing in
  the hope of getting a few coins from the office workers.
  'He's had someone dig out the FCihrer's horoscope for January 30, 1933. It
  says the same thing.'
 'Does Goebbels believe in all that horoscope stuff?' said Pauli.

                502
           'It doesn't look like gold'

  'Goebbels is shit-scared of the Russkis,' said Fritz. 'He's doing
  everything he can to convince himself that they'll never get here.'
 'But Goebbels is an educated man.'
  'Goebbels believes his own propaganda,' said Fritz. It cast a new light on
  the Reichsminister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Pauli had
  always thought Goebbels, with his virulent antiSemitistn, was a cynic like
  Fritz.
  'I never realized that,' Pauli coughed. They were both smoking, and the
  interior of the car was blue with tobacco smoke.
 'They are all mad,' said Fritz. 'That's why I'm clearing out.'
 'I thought you were going to the Obersalzberg with the Fiffirer.'
  'He'll never go. I should have seen that before. He'll stay down inside
  that damned bunker until the Russian tanks roll over us.'
 'I thought he'd arranged to be there for his fifty-sixth birthday.'
  'That's what he said, but he'll not go now. I should have realized what he
  really intended when Eva Braun arrived here back in January. He usually
  keeps her locked up in the Berghof.'
 'Who's Eva Braun?' said Pauli.
 'The Fiffirer's mistress: his fancy woman.'
 'Mistress? The FiihreO Are you sure?'
  'It's been a well-kept secret, hasn't it? He's had that lovely little piece
  tucked away in the Berghof for twelve years or so, yet very few people
  know.'
 'Where will you go?'
  'South. Once the American spearheads join the Russians, we'll never get
  through.'
 'Through to where?'
  'I don't know ... Swiizerland, or Italy. I want false papers. Do you think
  Lothar Koch could fix something for me?'
  'I should think so; he's done it for others, and for himself. He has papers
  to show he's been a clerk for the last twelve years, and a hotel reception
  clerk before that. Who knows, someone might believe him. Go up and see him
  now. He's been sleeping in his office since the S-Bahn stopped.'
 'I want you to come, too, Pauli.'
 'I can't, Fritz.'
  'Wait until you see what I've got.' Fritz grinned. 'Look in the sacks.' The
  whole rear seat was taken up by small sacks tied loosely with rope. Pauli
  grabbed one and looked inside. At first he couldn't distinguish what was
  there. It was damned heavy but it looked like scrambled egg - dirty
  scrambled egg.

                503
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

 'What is it?'
 'Gold.'
 'Gold? It doesn't look like gold,' said Pauli.
  'Teeth and stuff, gold spectacle frames, a lot of junk the SD had stored in
  the Reichsbank.'
 'How did you get it?'
  'Reichsminister Funk has ordered that all gold, silver, foreign paper money
  and valuables stored in their vaults be moved south.'
 'Where to?'
 'It's all being put in salt mines and caves. Hidden away.'
 'And this?'
  'It doesn't belong to the Reichsbank: it belongs to us. I gave them a
  receipt on Sicherheitsdienst notepaper. No one cared as long as they had a
  receipt.'
 'The SD? There will be terrible trouble when they find out, Fritz.'
  'Don't be so stupid, Pauli.' He lit a new cigarette from the butt before
  stubbing it into the ashtray with exaggerated force. 'It's all over. And
  this is what we need to finance us. Reichsmarks are not going to be worth
  a thing once we stop fighting.'
 'But you've stolen it.'
 'Who else needs iL? Come along, we'll share. Feel the weight of it.'
 'Teeth? Gold teeth?'
 'From prisoners who died in the camps.'
 'Ugh!'
 'Don't go squeamish. You fought in the war, didn't you?'
  'Prisoners? People who died in the camps? It's horrible. They stored it in
  the Reichsbank?'
  'There's tons of it there. This is all I could manage. Come with me, Pauli.
  I have plenty of gas for the car.'
  'I have to stay here, Fritz. I have to look after my mama.' Pauli wound the
  window down to let some of the smoke out. The sound of the little barrel
  organ sounded louder.
  'You'll never have a chance like this again, Pauli. The Russians will kill
  everyone in the city.'
 'My mother's too old to go anywhere.'
  Fritz didn't argue that point. He had no intention of taking Pauli's mother
  anywhere. Hell, she must weigh at least fifty kilos, and think what that
  would be worth in gold.
  Pauli closed the neck of the sack. He found it disturbing to look at these
  pathetic and grotesque bits and pieces now that he knew what they were. He
  tied the sack carefully and pushed it aside. 'Thanks

                504
           'It doesn't look like gold'

 again, Fritz, but I have to stay here with her. There's no one to look
 after her now that Papa is dead.'
 'I'll need a gun, Pauli.'
 'I thought you had one.'
  'Something more effective - a machine gun.' They looked at each other and
  Fritz said, 'People will kill for this much gold.'
 'Will they, Fritz?'
  'Not here in the city . . not yet. But I'm going south, where the
  fighting is.' People were arriving for work. A bus stopped and a dozen
  or more clerks got off it. It was amazing how people just carried on,
  despite the imminent collapse of the nation.
  'See Koch. Tell him io phone the armoury at Prinz-AlbrechtStrasse - he
  knows who to speak with - and say I said it was all right for you to have
  whatever you want.'
  'I knew you'd be able to ftx it, Pauli.' He tugged at the steering wheel,
  as if impatient to start.
 'Then it's goodbye?'
  'Yes. I'm off as soon as I get documents and a gun.' Fritz tapped ash
  from the end of his cigarette in the little ashtray. It was an unusual
  gesture for Fritz, who usually let ash fly where it might.
 'We had some good times, Fritz.'
  'And we'll have lots more, Pauli. It will work out, you'll see. I'll
  write to you at your parents' house. Okay?'
 'Is Inge going with you?'
  'She left yesterday. By train. I managed to get her a seat and papers.
  I'll meet her in Mittenwald on the weekend.'
  'Tell her good luck, too.' Pauli opened the car door and got out.
  'Goodbye, Fritz.' The organ was playing 'Lily Marlene'. Pauli had lots
  of work to do. Perhaps it would be more sensible to get false papers and
  flee, the way Fritz was doing, but for Pauli work came first. It always
  had.

           'A tz"te to be brave'

On April 20, Adolf Hitler's birthday was celebrated in Berlin, and all
the top Nazi leaders were with him in the bunker: G6ring, Himmler,
Ribbentrop, Bormann and Goebbels, as well as the senior military
commanders. But that night many of them left the city. G6ring, in a
long caravan of motor vehicles, was taking some choice pieces of
plundered art to the Obersalzberg, while Himmler headed north to

                505
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

 Uibeck, where he was to discuss peace terms in the Swedish consulate.
  Such extra %pace made available in the Fuhrerbunker meant that the entire
  Goebbels family was invited to move in from their damaged house in the
  Wilhelmstrasse garden. Two days later, Russian tanks broke through the
  outer defences and got into the city limits. By this time artillery shells
  were falling in the centre of Berlin.
  The men who worked at the Weissensee cemetery continued to go to work even
  when there was German field artillery in nearby Berliner Allee firing at
  targets in the open ground at Wartenberg, to the north of the freight
  railway lines. The shots were falling in the vegetable patches, and the
  loose earth made great black clouds as each one exploded in the dry dirt.
  'Infantry,'said Dr Volkmann. The others listened respectfully. In the first
  war he'd won the Iron Cross first class while serving on the Western Front.
  'High-explosive shells; and that sort is used against soft targets. Russian
  infantry.'
 'Poor devils,' said Benjamin the rabbi.
  The poor devils must have been radioing for help, for hardly were the words
  out of his mouth when great fireballs began arcing across the dark sky,
  their trajectories ending in the approximate position of the German guns.
  The mysterious fiery missiles made loud screaming sounds as they came
  racing through the air.
  'Counterbattery fire,' said Dr Volkniann. 'Rockets. They call them "Stalin
  Organs". I think we'd better get back to the mortuary. There must be tanks
  behind the infantry. One of the guns has started to fire armour piercing
  rounds. Can you hear it?'
  'The infantry will be behind the tanks, surely,' said the professor, who
  never liked to be left out of a conversation too long.
  'No, no, no,' said Volkmann. 'Infantry first, then tanks.' He didn't intend
  to turn it into the sort of academic discussion that the professor enjoyed.
  'I'm getting back.'
  Boris Som16 had been carrying his big red flag wrapped in brown paper. Now
  he untied the string and was ready to unfold it. The others stayed close to
  him.
 Dr Volkmann asked if anyone was coming with him.
  'We have to face them sometime, Dr Volkniann,' said Benjamin the rabbi.
  'Better here in the open,' said Dr Weiss, 'Perhaps they'll give us some
  form of laissez-passer that will keep us safe. By tomorrow everyone will be
  clamouring for special treatment.' He looked at

                5o6
            'A time to be brave'

 Boris. There was a hard, determined expression on his face, a look the
 others had never seen before.
  'I'm going back,' said Volkmann. 'Who's coming with me?' No one answered.
 'This is a time to be brave,' said Benjamin the rabbi.
  As Benjamin said it, Boris moved forward, with the flag thrown over his
  shoulder like a blanket roll. The others followed him, heading for the
  railway lines. Boris had decided that the embankment would be a good place
  to confront the oncoming Soviet soldiers. They would have enough time to
  see the flag if it was draped across the embankment. By tacit consent Boris
  had become the leader of the group.
  Dr Volkmann went back. He didn't want to confront the Red Army soldiers. He
  wanted to get back to his wife and baby son.
  Volkmann hurried along Berliner Allee, hoping for a lift into the centre of
  town, but the only traffic on the street was the army: trucks filled with
  infantry, some ten-centimetre guns being towed behind big half-tracks, and
  five ianks coming down Virchow Strasse from the Friedrichs Hain, which had
  been made into a vehicle park for the army. The tracks were damaging the
  road surface, but it didn't matter now, he supposed. Nothing mattered. When
  he got to the Horst Wessel Hospital on Landsberger Allee he saw men strung
  up on the lampposts. The bodies were swaying in the breeze and on each one
  a hastily scrawled white card was tied. It said,'I deserted my post and
  paid the price'. He'd heard that there were 'flying tribunals' serving out
  summary death sentences in the streets, but this was the first evidence
  he'd seen of their work. He shuddered and hurried on, skirting round a
  place near the Alexanderplatz where a bus had fallen into an exposed
  section of the underground railway. Teno crews -specially trained and
  equipped engineers - had erected lifting tackle and were working to release
  people trapped in the twisted wreckage.
  On the west side of the wide intersection two streetcars had been shifted
  off their tracks to improvise a barrier. Hitler Youth and elderly men
  wearing old Imperial Army greatcoats, 'Africa-Corps' caps, and Volkssturm
  armbands were filling the streetcars with rubble and bits of broken paving.
  In the middle of the road were three dead horses and the pieces of an army
  wagon scattered around the shallow crater that marked the place where the
  stray round from some Red Army gun had found them.
  As Dr Volkmann reached the next corner, there was the sudden sound of rifle
  fire. just a ragged volley of about half a dozen gunshots,

                507
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

 but it was so near at hand that Volkmann stopped in his tracks, frightened
 that he was coming into a line of fire. Surely the Russians hadn't got
 this far so suddenly, though there had been rurnours about parachute
 troops dropping into the city at night.
  He looked around in time to see six soldiers scrambling over a pile of
  rubble to get back to the street from some wrecked houses. They were
  tough-looking fellows, their uniforms stained and dusty, their boots
  dirty and scuffed.
 'Hey, you!' one of them shouted.
 Volkmann turned.
  'Don't move!' Two of them had their rifles raised and pointed at him in
  a businesslike way. They'd been through this routine before.
  Volkmann raised his hands well above his head and waited. As they got
  closer he could see that their uniforms were green and they wore police
  badges on their sleeves, but they weren't ordinary policemen: they were
  members of one of the special 'police regiments' formed for service in
  the occupied Eastern territories. They were fierce-looking men who well
  knew the terrible reputation they'd earned in the regions where they were
  employed to protect the army's lines of communication.
  One of them - a tall NCO with the rank badges of a Wachtmeister - prodded
  Volkmann with the muzzle of his rifle, and in doing so deliberately
  pushed back his coat lapel to expose fully the large yellow cloth star
  of David that all Jews were compelled by law to wear outdoors.
  'Where are you going, Jew?' he demanded roughly in the singsong accent
  of the Rhineland.
 'Home, Herr Major.'
  The other men gave grim, mirthless chuckles. Volkmarm knew the man wasn't
  a major - he wasn't even an officer - but it seemed expedient to flatter
  him. Jews, those who'd survived, had learned to flatter every official
  they encountered, so now their fellow Germans expected such subservience.
  'All the way to Palestme?' said the Wachtmeister, and the other men
  laughed dutifully.
  Volkmann smiled to show what a good joke it was, and said, 'To Neuer
  Westen, Herr Major.'
  'New West End!' said the Wachtmeister, and sucked his teeth in mock
  respect at the mention of such a grand district. 'The Jews are back in
  New West End already. They must think the war is lost.' To Volkmann he
  said, 'Jews aren't allowed on the street.'As the soldiers

                5o8
            'A time to be brave'

 crowded closer round him, Volkmann grew aware of how tall they were. He
 became frightened, as they intended he should be.
  'I work at the Weissensee cemetery,' said Volkmann. 'I have my papers.'
  'Shoot the little bastaid,' said one of them, 'and tomorrow he'll ride
  to work in a hearse.' He laughed at his own joke.
  Volkmann looked round at the men. He knew now beyond doubt what the
  volley of rifle shots were: this was a 'flying tribunal' executing
  stragglers, deserters, or any unfortunate who could not satisfy them with
  their credentials.
  The constant drumbeat of distant bombardments was suddenly obliterated
  by the closer, ;harper bangs of field artillery. The soldiers looked back
  across the Alexanderplatz. The Volkssturm men working on the barricade
  had crouched down at the sudden sound. The Wachtmeister laughed at such
  nervousness. He spat on the ground, and as he wiped his mouth Volkmann
  saw a tattoo on the back of his hand: 'Mother'. The Wachtmeister took out
  his notebook. He opened it at a dog-eared page and began a litany: 'In
  the name of the Fiffirer and the Reich
 'Oh my God!' said Volkmann.
  'Better wait for the officer,' one of the men warned the Wachtmeister.
  The officer emerged from a piece of wall behind which, with an
  exaggerated modesty considering the circumstances, he'd retired to
  urinate. His pistol bett was thrown over his shoulder and his overcoat
  was flapping open as he fastened his flies. He was a big fellow with a
  round face, narrow eyes and a thin pointed nose. His uniform was not like
  the others': it was the ordinary German-army field grey, and his badges
  and piping were those of an artillery captain. When he'd fastened his
  overcoat, he left the top three buttons undone and the lapels fully open.
  It was a privilege extended only to generals and field marshals and to
  heroes who had Germany's most coveted medal for valour hanging at their
  collar.
  'A Jew,' the Wachtmeister reported. 'No proper papers: shoot him?' His
  voice betrayed the very lim'ted respect these men of the police regiment
  had for the regular army. The Wacbtmeister would have very much resented
  being sent out on patrol under the orders of a mere gunnery officer had
  it not been for the 'tin necktie' - the Knight's Cross with oak leaves
  - and all the other paraphernalia that he was wearing.
  'I have papers,' said Volkmann shrilly, although he knew the officer was
  more likely to believe his NCO.

                509
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

  Heavy trucks lumbered past, towing guns. Inside the trucks the crews looked
  tired, pale and apprehensive. 'What's your name?' said the officer.
  Volkmann was slightly reassured to hear the accent of Berlin in his voice.
  Berlin - a cosmopolitan city - had never been as hostile to the Jews as
  some other regions.
  'Volkmann. Isaac Volkmann. I work at the cemetery. My papers are in order,
  Herr Haupimann.' He almost added that he was an exofficer and a holder of
  the Iron Cross, but even now, with death so close, Isaac Volkmann's pride
  prevented him from saying it. Besides, such claims were unlikely to impress
  this fellow. Better, perhaps, simply to show these riffraff that a Jewish
  officer could die with his dignity and self-assurance intact.
  The artillery captain stared at him disdainfully. 'You work at the
  cemetery?' he asked as though he didn't believe it. 'The cemetery?'
 'Yes, Herr Hauptmann.'
 'You're Dr Volkmann the dentist,' he said accusingly.
 'Yes, I was.'
  'You did my teeth. When I was tiny. My father took me to your surgery in
  Ku-damm. Mauser; Rolf Mauser. Remember me?'
 'Perhaps,' said Volkmann.
  'Rolf Mauser. You photographed my teeth. You said you were going to use the
  photo slide in a lecture.'
 'I lectured a lot at one time,' said Volkmann.
  'Some special sort of root treatment. You never sent a bill,' said the
  officer.
  'Perhaps the school sent you,' said Volkmann. The field artillery fired
  again. It was closer this time. It must be on tracks: only selfpropelled
  guns could change position and fire so quickly afterwards.
  'Lichtenberg,' said one of the soldiers to the unasked question. 'Over open
  sights ... and that means Russki tanks ... at close range.'
 'Get along horne,' said the officer. 'Now the bill is paid. Right?'
 'Thank you, Herr Hatiptmann.'
  'Go home and stay home. Protect your wife and your family. When the Ivans
  arrive, Grod help all of us.'

 By the time Volkmann got back to the Hennigs', the first platoon of Red Army
 infantry had reached the railway embankment at Weissensee. They were
 veterans. Some of them had fought all the way from Mo3cow. They had dreamed
 of this day. They thought only of the women and the drink that were awaiting
 them just along

                510
            'A time to be brave'

 the road in the centre of this great metropolis. They had been promised full
 liberty to take anything they wanted from the 'German criminals'. There
 would be no restrictions. It was to be three days of raping, killing,
 looting and drinking; three days that would make up for the misery they'd
 suffered, the years without leave, the comrades lost.
  But the Germans were still fighting hard. It would be tragic to die on this
  day, so near the end. That was why the Red infantry took no chances. That
  was why it was better to shoot at anything that moved. That was why they
  didn't hesitate to kill the small bunch of old men in civilian clothes who
  were crouched behind the railway embankment. One long burst of fire was all
  that was needed, but a couple of hand grenades made sure of them. After
  that the whole platoon came across the railway in one wild dash. An
  embankment like that can be dangerous. There is a moment when each infantry
  man becomes silhouetted against the southern sky. German snipers, and an MG
  42, were firing from the roofs of houses in Franz Josef Strasse. But of the
  first Russian infantry platoon across the railway embankment only one man
  was killed. The fatality was a fifty-year-old senior NCO from Odessa. It
  was his bad luck to get his feet entangled in a big red cloth.
  When the burial party picked up his body neafly three weeks later - when
  fears of typhoid and typhus forced the Soviet authorities to hurry up the
  burying of the dead - they found his feet tangled in a flag, a crude
  home-made red flag. The burial party didn't waste any time wondering what
  it was. The Red Army didn't encourage men to wonder about such things.

      She was not young or even middle-aged

 When the fighting, and its horrendous aftermath, ended, Berlin was like a
 HoUywood film set. To the casual observer appeared streets and houses. But
 a closer inspection revealed that most of the houses were no more than
 hollow shells open to the sky: a honeycomb of enclosed empty spaces.
 Sometimes the whole sides of big blocks had slid away to reveal sinks and
 baths hanging from their plumbing lines. Paintings, and even mirrors, had
 survived on walls unaffected by the blast, and upper floors hung out over
 the street like tongues extended in a last rude, defiant grimace at the
 city's tormentors.
 It was spring. For many of the inhabitants, the coming of summer

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 would provide a chance to survive and prepare for the sort of raw
 temperatures that Berlin suffers in winter, but the summer would bring the
 sun and the flies, and it would make the stench of the city something that
 Berliners there at that time would never forget.
  Already it smelled bad. It smelled of the unburied dead, the dust of
  ancient brickwork and burned timbers, and of the stink from broken,
  overflowing sewers. But the conquering armies had become used to that.
  The sour smell of faeces, wreckage and putrefying flesh was a smell all
  soldiers knew: it was the smell of war.
  For most of the American, Russian and British soldiers, Berlin was just
  another German town. It was smelly and very badly damaged by bombing and
  shelling, but so were many of the other towns through which they'd
  fought. The only changes were the ones that occupying armies brought to
  all conquered towns: whores, beggars and black-marketeers.
  But not all the soldiers who walked between the huge mountains of rubble
  were indifferent to the city's plight. Sir Alan 'Boy' Piper felt the
  city's agonies as a chronic stab of pain. It was like seeing some
  beautiful friend who'd narrowly survived a disfiguring accident. One
  recognized every feature, but where did one look? What did one say?
  Piper was dressed as an Intelligence Corps major. His actual equivalent
  rank was brigadier general, but he felt far too conspicuous in such a
  uniform. For the time being at least, the military command was insisting
  that everyone wear a uniform of some sort, so Piper, as an important
  figure in the military government, felt unable to flout the regulations.
  He'd chosen to be a major. Colonels attracted far too much attention, but
  this field rank gave him admittance to clubs and offices where a captain
  would find it difficult to get in.
  But if Piper thought this device would render him inconspicuous, he was
  mistaken. Piper was upright and healthy - they'd made him take a physical
  before allowing him to come overseas - and he managed a soldier's stride
  and had abundant white hair and brightblue eyes that seemed to glitter
  when he smiled, but Piper was as old as Methuselah. Though soldiers were
  used to seeing very elderly brigadiers, such a very elderly major made
  heads turn. By now he'd realized this - and he was frequently stopped by
  military police and asked to show his papers - but he didn't care. He
  preferred being a major. People talked to majors in a way they didn't
  talk to generals; Piper liked talking to people, and his German was
  excellent.
  At the Kempinski Hotel he turned off Ku-damm and went up the side street
  until he came to the tea room. It was in a dilapidated

                512
       She was not young or even middle-aged

 condition, but someone had been trying to repair the ceiling and get it
 back into shape. What's more, the tea room was functioning: a handwritten
 sign said it opened at noon. There were chairs and tables with newly
 washed cloths and some primroses in tumblers on each one. In the corner
 was a big cracked Chinese pot containing an aspidistra plant. There was
 even a fellow tuning the piano. Piper watched him as he took a moment off
 from his work and played a few bars of Beethoven - 'FOr Elise'.
  'That's damned good!' said Piper when the piano tuner ended his little
  recital.
 'Thank you, Herr Major,' said Erich Hennig.
  'I'm looking for Frau Winter. Frau Veronica Winter. She isn't in her own
  home. I understand she's staying here.'
 'The second floor. Are you a relative?'
 'Alas, no,' said Piper, 'an old friend.'
  'At the back, on the second floor. Mind the loose stair carpet, Herr
  Major: it's dangerous.'
 'Thank you,' said Piper. 'I shall.'
  As he went up the stairs, he was humming to himself. You old fool, he
  thought, you are like some wretched eighteen-year-old on his first date.
  But he couldn't help feeling excited. He'd spent his life thinking about
  Veronica, one way or another. He'd even contrived to see her brother as
  often as possible because he was so like her in looks and in manner. Now
  the moment had finally come and he was preparing himself for a rude
  shock. Preparing himself for a rude shock, and yet not actually expecting
  it. 'Hope for the best and prepare for the worst'- his niece had
  embroidered that at school on a small sampler that she later gave him.
  He'd had it hanging on the wall of his London office ever since.
  He reached the dark landing, knocked, and after a moment or so called:
  'Frau Winter?'
  She was a long time coming to the door. What had he expected: that
  beautiful, animated creature who'd turned his head in igio and occupied
  his mind ever since?
  She was not young or even middle-aged, that woman who answered the door
  to him: she was white-haired.
  'Yes?'Old and frail but unmistakably her. She held the door open. She was
  not as tall as the woman he remembered, but she had the same wide, bony
  face and the same Rensselaer jaw and mouth. She was still beautiful.
 'Veronica. Do you remember rne?'

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  It took her a moment to adjust herself to speaking English. 'Are you a
  friend of my brother's? ... I am sorry I am in such muddle. I have just
  moved here ... Everything is . . .'
 'Veronica. It's Alan Piper - "Boy". You remember... ?'
  'Yes, Boy.' She frowned. She recalled the voice so clearly. It was a
  wonderful voice, low and clear and mellow.-Without her glasses she couldn't
  see him distinctly in the darkness of the landing. But when she leaned
  closer her face lit up and she smiled the sort of sad, reflective smile
  that he remembered so well. 'Do come in.... You're in the army. Come in....
  It's all such a muddle I have just moved in.'
  'Thank you, but I mustn't stay. I came to see that you were all right. I
  promised your brother.'
 'How did you find me;~ This house belongs to the Hennig family.'
 'The ration cards.'
  'Oh, of course.' She took his peaked cap from him and indicated that he
  should sit down on the battered sofa. The room was in a terrible muddle.
  There were two trunks open on one side of the room. From them she'd been
  taking linen and some oddments of personal possessions. Otherwise the room
  was relatively bare. Apart from the sofa, there were three hard wooden
  chairs and a table propped up under a broken leg. A picture of a rather
  grand wedding group was occupying pride of place on a small inlaid side
  table. There was no frame for the photo: she'd sold the silver frame to
  give the Hennigs something to help, and show her appreciation. Close
  inspection revealed that the groom was Paul, in his army uniform. The bride
  looked radiant, and there was a big crowd of smiling faces and an escort of
  army officers with drawn swords.
 'And I wanted to tell you that your sons are safe and well,' he said.
  'Safe and well,' she repeated, and sat down as if dazed. 'Safe and well.
  Both of them?'
  'Peter is in the American army. He's with your brother in the American Zone
  - Munich or somewhere near there. I'm sure they'll both visit you as soon
  as they get a chance.'
 'Peter, yes, I'd heard he was with the army.'
  'A full colonel. He's been assigned to the International Military
  Tribunal.'
 'That sounds very grand.'
  'The war crimes trials at Nuremberg. It won't start for a long time yet,
  and it will go on for ages. You'll see a lot of them, I should think,
  unless you've decided to be repatriated.'

                54
       She was not young or even middle-aged

 'To the U.S.?'
  'It wouldn't be difficult to arrange, Veronica. If that's what you want.'
 'You said both boys were safe.'
  'Paul is in a prison camp near Cologne. He'll probably be taken to England
  eventually.'
  'To England?' The poor woman was confused. It was all too much for her.
  'Shall I put the stove oil and boil some water?' he offered. 'I brought
  some coffee with me.'
 'Real coffee?'
 'Yes indeed.'
 'It's a pressure stove. You won't be able to work it.'
  'Stay where you are, Veronica. I was workung these stoves when I was at Boy
  Scout camp, and that was a long time ago.'
  She laughed. It was a sweet, girlish laugh. 'Yes, it must have been a long
  time ago.'
  She watched him as he made the coffee. It gave her a moment to compose
  herself. It was all so unexpected. Why hadn't he written? She would have
  worn something better, and asked Lisl to do her hair for her. There was a
  sudden loud hissing as he got the pressure stove started. He tried the tap,
  but there was no water.
  'In the jug on the drainizigboard,' she called. As well as a twopound
  package of coffee, he'd brought a can ofevaporated milk and a bag of sugar.
  He was so precise and methodical. 'The can opener is in the drawer.'
 'Stay where you are, Veronica. I can manage.'
 'And you are in the army-.d' she said.
 'Don't I look like a soldier?'
  'Of course you do,' she said, although in fact he didn't. He looked like an
  elderly matinee idol playing the role of one.
  He brought the pot of coffee, and the milk in a jug. She said, 'Tell me
  about Pauli.'
  He looked at her. It was better to tell her the whole truth; she wasn't the
  sort of woman who refused to face reality. 'He's being interrogated.... Oh,
  don't be frightened, Veronica. That doesn't mean ill-treated. He's being
  questioned.'
 'About what?'
  'Paul was a high official of the Gestapo. He was at a decisionmaking level
  in the Ministry of the Interior.'

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  'He's not a criminal,' she said softly. 'He was just a civil servant: a
  bureaucrat.'
  'These are Nazi Party organizations, Veronica. It's routine, but he'll have
  to be questioned.'
 'You know a lot about him.'
  'I poked my nose into it. They let ie look at the files. One of my young
  men, a fellow named Brian ' inson, is what, in this hateful modern jargon,
  they are calling "a ci,--Nazification expert".'
 'Samson. The name is familiar. F I know him?'
 'Possibly. He used to work in one of Harald's factories.'
  She looked at him in mild surpris, , she could believe anything by now. 'An
  Englishman. Yes, I met him once or twice. So he was one of your people?'
 'Yes,' said Piper.
  'Harald always said you were a spy. I laughed at him. We quarrelled about
  it.'
 'I'm sorry.'
 'For being a spy?'
 'That you quarrelled.'
  'It doesn't matter.' She picked up the coffee, smelled it for a moment, and
  then drank some greedily. It was the first taste of real fresh coffee she'd
  had in a long long time. 'Do you have a family?' she asked.
  'No, I never married. There was always so much work. Girlfriends wouldn't
  put up with me.'
 'I'm sure that's not true.'
  He tried to think of something to say. Something that would smoothly lead
  to his being able to tell her that no one he'd ever met could measure up to
  her. But he couldn't bring himself to say it. He only had two days here in
  Berlin, and he'd vowed to tell her that there had been no one else in his
  life. He watched her, savouring the sight of her. She had drunk all her
  coffee already and he'd not even tasted his own. He smiled and poured more
  for her.
 'That coffee tastes so good,' she said.
 'And you never married again?' he asked.
  'Me? No.' She decided that her second cup would have evaporated milk in it.
  'Do you take cream?'
 'Thank you, yes.'
 She poured some for him. 'Enough?'
 'Yes.'
 'It's so good to spcak English again.' She poured some of the

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       She was not young or even middle-aged

 tinned milk for herself, then touched her hair. 'I must look terrible.
 It's so dusty, and everything is such a mess.'
 'You look wonderful, Veronica.'
 'I wish I could offer you something.'
 'I'll send you some food. I have such a lot. Do you smoke?'
 'No,' she said.
  'I'll let you have some cigarettes anyway. They say you can get anything
  done for cigarettes.'
  'Yes, there's no doubt about that.' She sighed. 'There is no self-
  discipline, no faith, no dignity, no self-respect any more. The Germany
  that I once knew is gone.'
  'Was it anything but our self-deception, Veronica? I loved Germany, too,
  but now I ask myself if that Germany I loved so much ever existed.'
 'What will happen to him?'
  'To Paul? It's difficult to guess. There is talk of declaring the SS an
  illegal organization, but I don't see how they could punish every member
  of the SS, could they?'
  'Harald said that once about the Jews. He said that Hitler and his Nazis
  could hardly punish every one of them, but he did, didn't he?'
 'Nearly every one, yes, but we're not Hitler.'
  'Pauli's wife left him. She went off with a man he worked for, Fritz
  Esser, the deputy minister. Now I see that Fritz Esser is going to be
  charged with crimes against humanity.' She picked up her coffee and
  sipped some. 'I worry about Pauli. He's a wonderful boy; there is no
  wickedness in him.'
 'And I'msurc he'll come to no harm.'
  'When the Russian soldiers came to the old house, he stayed with me,
  locked up in the attic. He had a gun. Eventually they went away.'
 'It must have been terrible.'
  'People were being raped and murdered. We could hear them screaming and
  shouting. It was a nightmare, and it went on for days and nights, but
  Pauli stayed with me. Then, when the British soldiers arrived, an English
  officer and police came. They searched the house and took Pauli away.'
  She was distressed at the memory.
 He said, 'Better us than the Russians.'
  'Pauli said that, too. Then the English came back and commandeered the
  whole house. They'd noticed that I was there alone and that it wasn't too
  badly damaged. They gave me forty-eight hours to get out. I had to come
  around here to live with the Hennigs.'

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  'Berlin will not be a good place to five, Veronica. Accommodation will
  become more and more difficult, and when winter comes life will be hard.'
 'I'm sure you're right,' she said. She looked at him and smiled.
  He wondered if this was the right time for him to say that he loved her,
  that he adored her, that he wanted to marry her, that she was the only
  woman he'd ever wanted. But he wasn't sure it was the right time. He was
  English: an elderly Englishman who was frightened of making a fool of
  himself. He decided to leave it for another time. The thought of her
  laughing at him was unendurable. Better, perhaps, to live without her than
  to risk the destruction of his dream.
  'I'm going to Cologne tomorrow for a conference,' he said. He mustn't
  outstay his welcome. Perhaps it was a mistake to come without warning. He
  got to his feet. 'If I can get any news of your son, I will let you know.'
 'Thank you. You're forgetting your package of coffee.'
 'Please, keep it if you'd like it.'
  'It was wonderful to see you again, Boy.' She couldn't offer him a meal;
  she had no food and no money to buy any. She wondered where would be the
  best place to sell the coffee. With that money she'd. have enough to give
  him a snack of some kind next time he came.
  'I'll keep in touch,' he promised. She was close to him, and he wondered
  whether he should kiss her, but it might offend her. He decided to shake
  hands instead.

       Ezvyone is being damned zindictizv'

 Colonel Peter Winter could never get over the Americans, their profligate
 use of money and the hardware, and convenience, that money could buy. When
 he went to collect his brother, the U.S. Army provided him with the
 exclusive use of a plane to Nuremberg. It was not a small communications
 plane, either, but a large Douglas DC3 transport.
  Pauli Winter's months in custody had made him thin, wiry and fit - he
  looked like the young soldier who'd marched off to fight in World War I -
  but he was no longer the careless, cheerful man he'd once been. Confinement
  did not suit Pauli's restless, undisciplined spirit, and now he'd become
  moody and subdued; even the presence of Peter hadn't restored his confident
  good humour. He'd chosen a

                518
        'Everyone is being damned vindictive'

 seat by the window, and now he watched the land pass beneath in breathless
 horror. Nothing he'd read or heard had prepared him for the reality of this
 war-ravaged, pockmarked land that once had been Germany. The light dusting
 of snow revealed every crater and roofless farm building, every broken spire
 and lifeless village. To Pauli it was as if someone had taken a pot of white
 paint to mark each wound and say to him, 'German, this is your punishment -
 repent!'
  Peter Winter and his brother, Pauli, sat side by side. Behind them sat
  Brian Samson, who wore the uniform of a British army captain. The people in
  London had been reluctant to let Paul Winter go, and eventually Peter had
  eased the situation by suggesting that Brian Samson came, too. Samson
  didn't want to go to Nuremberg, but he'd been ordered to do so. It was,
  someone had said, important not to create a precedent. Senior staff from
  the Ministry of the Interior were important catches. Such categorized
  German prisoners would not be released to the Americans on receipt of a
  request. Paul Winter was not released to the Americans: he was still in the
  direct custody of Captain Brian Samson and would remain so until further
  notice.
  Suddenly Pauli dragged his eyes away from the ground below and asked,
  'Wouldn't it have been better if I'd stayed in London and faced this
  de-Nazification inquiry?'
  Peter was tired. There were rings under his eyes, and his face was
  wrinkled, as was his uniform. Worry about Pauli and grief for Lottie,
  concern for his daughter and his mother had put such a multitude of burdens
  upon him that he sometimes felt he could no longer cope. For the last week
  or so he'd been subjected to Glenn Rensselaer's long and bitter tirades
  about Dot and the way she'd managed to become the sole beneficiary ot Cy
  Rensselaer's fortune. She'd already made it clear that she'd do nothing to
  rectify the old man's harsh decision to omit Glenn and Veronica from the
  will. The money was destined for her three sons. Glenn, who'd never
  concerned himself with money was furious. He wanted to contest the will and
  urged Peter to join him in the action. Peter was too tired even to argue
  about it. But collecting Pauli had concentrated his mind. For the time
  being Pauli was the focus of his anxieties. He loved Pauli and had missed
  him very much.
  'No, it wouldn't,' said Peter. 'Everyone is being damned vindictive at the
  moment. Let a few months go by and they will simmer down a little. Instead
  of hanging people they'll be giving out shorter and shorter prison
  sentences. If I can keep you in Nuremberg until

                519
         Nz neteen hundred and forty-five

 the IMT is finished, everyone will be getting bored with deNazification. I
 know the Americans. Do as I say.'
 'Did you tell Fritz Esser to ask for me?'
  'I had someone remind him that it was his right to have any defence lawyer
  that would agree to serve. He didn't have to be told that you would be a
  good choice.'
 'He could have had anyone?'
  'Even a German serving a sentence would be temporarily released.'
 'So it will be a fair trial?'
  'A fair trial? In Nuremberg?' Peter looked at his younger brother and gave
  him a weaiy smile. 'Yes, they'll get a fair trial, and then they'll be
  hanged.'
 'Do you mean that?'
  'It will be a fias(o,' said Peter. 'The Russians are sitting in judgement.
  The Russians! They were Hitler's allies. Stalin sent Hitler a message of
  congratulation when France surrendered to the panzers. Stalin's
  concentration camps have slaughtered more victims than Himmler's have. They
  will he the judges.'
 'But still . . .'
  'Wait till you get there-, you'll see. Each of the accused has one lawyer.
  You won't even be able to talk to Fritz Esser in private: you'll be in a
  noisy room, crowded together with other accused men trying to talk to their
  lawyers. There will be a guard sitting alongside you to make sure that he
  hears everything you say. And, to make sure you don't get close enough to
  whisper, they'll put a sheet of armoured glass in front of your face.'
 'That won't help them.
  'And you'll see what the prosecution team is like. There are hundreds of
  lawyers, and hundreds of researchers, translators and secretarial staff.
  Money is being spent without restriction-, this is the trial that justifies
  the war, you see. So the prosecution staff are Living in the fancy hotels
  and throwing wild parties every night. French champagne and American
  rations. Cigarettes by the carton. Oh, yes, the lawyers will have a fair
  trial, it will be something to talk about when they're back home in
  America. But for the accused it will be a travesty of justice.'
 'It can't be true,' said Pauli.
 'It's true. I'm on the prosecution staff, so I know,' said Peter.
 'Are you trying to depress me?'
 'I just don't want you to imagine that you are going to go to

                520
        'Everyone is being damned vindictive'

 Nuremberg and do some kind of wonderful legal work and bring Esser out of
 court a free man. You're not. Esser will go to the gallows. The
 International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg is just a fancy way of sending
 him there.'
  There was a new voice, soft but angry. 'Is that what you think, Colonel
  Winter?' said Brian Samson from the seat behind them.
  'Yes, it is,' said Peter Winter. He'd known that Samson was listening to
  him. In fact, his tirade wasn't entirely designed to disillusion Pauli, but
  partly to provoke and irritate Brian Samson. And he'd succeeded. The two
  men knew exactly how to annoy each other. They'd had a lot of practice.

       'Spring u~ill be a little late this year'

 The jail was five spokes radiating from a central rotunda, each with three
 levels of cells. There was heavy-duty wire mesh overhead to frustrate
 suicide attempts. The guards were uniformed American soldiers, and from the
 office at the end came the resonant sound of music: 'Spring Will Be a Little
 Late This Year'. It was one of the hit tunes. Fritz Esser was on the bottom
 level, near the end. The cell floor was uneven flagstones, and the walls
 rough plaster with damp patches under the tiny window set high in the wall.
 In the corner was a toilet that smelled of a powerful disinfectant.
  Pauli entered the prison cell unprepared for the change that the short
  period of imprisonment had wrought. Fritz Esser was only fifty-two years
  old and looked at least sixty. fie was an old man. He was sitting on the
  iron frame bed, sallow and shrunken. His elbows were resting on his knees
  and one hand was propped under his unshaven chin. The prison authorities
  had taken from him his belt, his braces and his necktie, and the expensive
  custom-made suit from Berlin's most famous tailor was now stained and
  baggy. And yet the dark-underlined eyes were the same, and the pointed
  cleft chin made him immediately recognizable as a celebrity of the Third
  Reich, one of Hitler's most reliable associates.
  He waited for Fritz Esser to speak but he said nothing. Finally Pauli said,
  'You sent for me, Herr Reichsminister?'
  The prisoner looked up. 'The Reich is kaputt, Germany is kaputt, and I'm
  not a minister: I'm just a number.'Pauli Winter could think of no way to
  respond to this bitterness. He'd become Used to seeing him sitting behind
  the magnificent hand-carved desk in the

                521
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

 tapestry-hung room in the ministry, surrounded by aides, secretaries and
 assistants. 'Yes, I sent for you, Herr Doktor Winter. Sit down.'
  He sat down. So he'd guessed right, Fritz Esser wanted to keep it all
  formal: Herr Doktor Winter, not Pauli. Well, that was just as well. It was
  better kept formal if you were talking to your former boss in prison.
  'I sent for you, Winter, and I'll tell you why. They told me you were in
  prison in London awaiting interrogation. They said that any of us on trial
  here could choose any German national we wanted for our defence counsel,
  and that if the one we chose was being held in prison they'd release him to
  do it. It seemed to me that a man in prison might know what it's like for
  me in here.'
  Pauli looked at him. Fritz reminded Pauli of someone he'd known a long time
  ago, and as Fritz looked up he realized who: he had become the very image
  of his father, the pig man. Pauli wondered if he should offer the
  ex-Reichsminister a cigarette, but when - still undecided - he produced his
  precious cigarettes, the military policeman in the corridor shouted through
  the open door, 'No smoking, buddy!'
  The ex-Reichsmirlister gave no sign of having heard the prison guard's
  voice. He carried on with his explanation. 'Two, you speak American ...
  speak it fluently. Three, you're a damned good lawyer, as I know from
  working with you for many years. Four, and this is the most important, you
  are an Obersturmbannfuhrer in the SS. . . .'He saw Winter's face change and
  said, 'Is there something wrong, Winter?'
  Pauli leaned forward; it was a gesture of confidentiality and commitment.
  'At this very moment, just a few hundred yards from here, there are a
  hundred or more American lawyers drafting the prosecution's case for
  declaring the SS an illegal organization. Such a verdict would mean prison,
  and perhaps death sentences, for everyone who was ever a member.'
  'Very well,' said the prisoner testily. He'd always hated what he called
  'unimportant pettifogging details'. 'But you're not going to suddenly claim
  you weren't a member of the SS, are you?'
  For the first time since the message had come that Fritz Esser wanted him
  as defence counsel, Winter felt alarmed. He looked round the cell to see if
  there were microphones. There were bound to be. He remembered this building
  from the time when he'd been working with the Nuremberg Gestapo. That was
  the summer when old Graf and the rest of them were executed. Half the
  material used in

                522
        'Spring u~ill be a little late this year'

 the trial of the other disgruntled brownshirts had come from shorthand
 clerks who had listened to the prisoners over hidden microphones. 'I can't
 answer that,' said Winter softly.
  'Don't give me that yes-sir, no-sir, 1-don't-know-sir. I don't want some
  woolly-minded, fainthearted, Jew-loving liberal trying to get my case
  thrown out of court on some obscure technicality. I sent for you because
  you got me into all this. I remembered your hard work for the party. I
  remembered the good times we had long before we dreamed of coming to
  power-. I remembered the way your father lent me money back when no one
  else would even let me into their office. Pull yourself together, Winter.
  Either put your guts into the effort for my defence or get out ofhere!'
  So his father had given money to the party, despite everything that Pauli
  had done and advised. And Fritz had been the one who handled it: how
  typical of his father, and typical of Fritz. And typical of the party, too!
  God, how devious everyone was.
 'Did you hear me?' he said.
  'Yes.' Pauli smiled encouragement. He admired his old friend's spirit.
  Appearances could be deceptive: he wasn't the brokenspirited shell that
  Winter had thought; he was still the same ruthless old bastard that he had
  worked for. He remembered that first political meeting in the Potsdamer
  Platz in the 192os and the speech he'd given: 'Beneath the ashes fires
  still rage.' It had been a recurring theme in his speeches right up until
  1945.
  'We'll fight them,' said Pauli. 'We'll grab those judges by the ankles and
  shake them until their loose change falls to the floor.'
  'That's right,'said Esser. It was anotherone of his pet expressions. Is
  that what he'd done to Papa: shaken him until the loose change fell to the
  floor', 'That's right,' repeated Esser and almost smiled. How like a bear
  he was. Not now the elegant bruin who pawed live fish from fast streams;
  more like the moth-eaten old specimens behind bars in the zoo. But the
  claws and teeth were still sharp, and so was the mind.
 'Time's up, buddy!'
  Pauli looked at his watch. There was another two minutes to go. The
  Americans were like that. Peter's little outburst on the plane -never since
  repeated - had been one hundred per cent correct. They talked about justice
  and freedom, democracy and liberty, but they never gave an inch. There was
  no point in arguing: they were the victors. The whole damned Nuremberg
  trial was just a fiasco, just an opportunity for the Americans and the
  British and the French and

                523
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

 the Russians to make an elaborate pretence of legal rectitude before
 executing the vanquished. But it was better that the ex-Reichsminister
 didn't fully realize the inevitable verdict and sentence. Better to fight
 them all the way and go down fighting. At least that would keep his
 spirits alive. With this resolved, Pauli felt better, too. It would be a
 chance to relive the old days, if only in memories.
  When Pauli got to the cell door, Esser called out to him. 'One last
  thing, Winter.' Pauli turned to face him. 'I hear stories about some
  aggressive American colonel on the prosecution staff, the tall, thin one
  with the beautifully tailored uniform and the manicured fingernails ...
  A man who speaks perfect German with a Berlin accent. They say he hates
  all Germans and makes no allowances for anything . . . he treats everyone
  to a tongue-lashing every time he sends for them. Now they tell me he's
  been sent from Washington just to frame the prosecution's case against
  me. . . .' He paused and stared. He was working himself up into the sort
  of rage that had caused his voice to echo through the ministry and panic
  all the staff. 'Not for G6ring, Speer, Hess, or any of the others, just
  for me. What do you know about that shit-face Schweinehund?'
 'Yes, I know him. It's my brother.'
  He almost enjoyed the consternation on Fritz Esser's face. 'Your brother?
  Peter?'
 'That's him.' A prison guard strolled past, whistling tunelessly.
  'The Americans made him a colonel in their army? He's a German.'
  'The Americans do things differently, Fritz. It takes a bit of getting
  used to.'
  'Jesus Christ, it does! He was some kind of spy! I saved the bastard's
  life. Last year: that night in Berlin. I saved his life. You got him
  away.'
 'He knows that.'
 'I wonder if he doe,,,' said Esser.
  'You didn't do it for him, did you?' It was a question: not rhetoric. 'It
  was for the SS-Reiclisfiffirer.'
 Esser pointed a stubby finger. 'You saved his life.'
 'Never mind the pettifogging details,' said Pauli.
  Fritz Esser managed a brief grin. My God! How like the pig man he looked.
  Pauli wondered if he was now beginning to resemble Harald Winter to the
  same extent.

               594
       'A good Gennan, a man of honour'

 Considering that he'd been left unconscious on the battlefield, suffered
 shell-splinter wounds, and been identified as a live enemy casualty by an
 American burial party, Rudolf Freiherr von Kleindorf had made an amazing
 recovery. But he'd spent five months in hospital, and even now he was
 subject to giddiness and fainting. That's why he'd been repatriated and
 officially made into a civilian at a time when most of the German army were
 still in Allied prison camps.
  Armed with an official pass issued by the Allied Military Command in
  Berlin, he had come into the Russian Zone of Germany to find a man he'd
  never met: Baron Wilhelm von Munte, a landed aristocrat who'd lived here,
  near Bernau, for many generations.
  What in former times was a commuter ride from central Berlin had taken von
  Kleindorf four hours. It was a miserable grey day with low cloud and the
  easterly wind that always brings low temperatures in that region. The only
  train that Germans were permitted to use was over an hour late, and he'd
  had to walk all the way from the station, much of the way in thick mud.
  Four times he'd been stopped by Russian military policemen, and they not
  only wanted to see his papers but phoned to their headquarters before
  allowing him to continue his journey.
  Even when he reached the address he'd been given he was held up and
  questioned by the Russian soldiers, for the Munte family home had been
  taken over by the Red Army. They were front-line soldiers, curious-looking
  fellows who toyed with their guns, smoked cheroots, and, unlike the men
  Kleindorf had commanded, were unshaven and smelled of drink.
  Old von Munte was in bed in a room in the tiny gate-lodge. Although his
  grand mansion had been taken over by the Red Army, they'd not objected to
  the Muntes' living nearby. They'd even allowed him to bring a few armfuls
  of books from his library. The books were stacked on the floor along one
  wall of this cramped, dark bedroom. But it was too dark to read. There was
  no electricity anywhere in this part of the country, and none was promised
  for the immediate future. The Russians were not trying to get the
  electricity stations going: they were dismantling them and shipping them
  back to Russia. Heat was sometimes provided by a tiny woodstove that today
  - despite the bitter cold - was unlit, and light by a big brass oil lamp
  that was in pieces on top of the side table, waited to be cleaned.

                525
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

  The old man was recovering from some unidentified virus, but he was lucky
  enough to have a competent local physician to attend him, and even
  luckier to have his son Walter von Munte looking after him so
  attentively. It was Walter who answered the door and who warned von
  Kleindorf that his father was not fit to talk for more than a few
  minutes.
  Walter had been a brilliant student who'd got high marks in his final
  exams and, by war's end, a senior position in the Reichsbank. Married
  very young - because his girlfriend, Ida, became pregnant -he'd lost her
  when she was killed in Berlin in one of the first of the really bad air
  raids. She'd been a dancer, and had gone back to work after the baby was
  born. There had been fierce family rows - the old man had always hated
  his new daughter-in-law - but Walter worshipped her and now worshipped
  her memory and the son she'd given him. Then, at the very end of the
  fighting, came another terrible tragedy. Walter's young brother had been
  killed in the fighting. The fifteen-year-old child had been the very
  essence of the old man's life. The loss had deprived him of the will to
  go on. Since then Walter had lived with his father and looked after him
  - and his own motherless babyson - with great devotion. But it was agony
  that bound the two men, agony that bordered on the edge of despair.
  And so von Kleindorf faced the obstructions of the son, as well as the
  gloom of the father, in his request that old Wilhelm von Munte come to
  Hamburg to give evidence at the war-crimes trial of General Alex Horner.
  Von Kleindorf was standing, head bent, cautiously avoiding the place
  where the wooden ceiling beam had already caused him to strike his head.
  No one had invited him to sit down so he stood, arms at his side in a
  formal pose that befitted one Prussian aristocrat paying a call upon
  another.
  'What makes you think it's not true?' asked the younger man. Walter was
  sitting in the corner, a heavily built man balanced on a little wooden
  kitchen chair. The hard light that comes before a storm lit one side of
  his face and reflected from the bare floorboards to make golden patterns
  on the ceiling. For a few moments the room was suffused with a curious
  shadowless light. It made the old man, propped on the lace-trimmed pillow
  in the brass bed, look like a long-dead saint, desiccated and displayed
  for some holy celebration.
  Von Kleindorf had been speaking to the old man in the bed, but the old
  man said nothing. It was always his son who replied. Though

                526
        'A good German, a man of hanour'

 the son must be young, he didn't look young. He was a heavy, saturnine
 figure, the sort of man who never looked young.
  Kleiridorf looked at him. What was the fellow up to: was he testing him?
  'I didn't say it wasn't true,' said Klcindorf patiently. 'I said he
  wasn't guilty.'
 'Of shooting the British prisoners?'
  'There was an SS division in Horner's corps. They shot the prisoners:
  Australian prisoners.'
 'What does the SS commander say?'
  'The SS commander is dead. The Divisional Headquarters staff fought to
  the last man. When the Corps Headquarters was overrun, General Horner was
  Using a rifle. It's an amazing story. They fought to the very end.'
  'The commander gets the blame for any atrocities in his sector,' said
  Walter.
 'It's not right,' said von Kleindorf. 'It's not fair.'
  Walter von Munte didn't bother to respond. Of course it wasn't right or
  fair; almost nothing was right or fair. 'When is this trial?'
 'In about two months' time. The date's not fixed yet.'
 'In Hamburg?'
  'Yes, in Hamburg.' Would the fact that the trial would provide a visit
  to the British Zone make the old man more interested? he wondered.
 'I fail to see what my Jather can actually do there.'
  Von Kleindorf was tired of having his questions answered by the younger
  man. fie looked directly at Wilhelm, propped up in the bed. 'Baron
  Munte,' he said. 'You know General Horner. He was in the anti-Hitler
  conspiracy with you. I simply want you to tell the court that.'
  The old man cleared his throat and said, 'Will the British believe that
  no anti-Nazi conspirator could shoot prisoners?' It was a croaky voice
  and his tone was mocking.
  'I don't know, Baron Munte. I'm just trying to help a good man, a good
  German, a man of honour.'
  'All the good Germans are dead,' said the Baron. It was an old man's
  response, a provocative, mischievous dismissal.
 Von Kleindorf said nothing.
  'Why did Homer send you?' asked the old man querulously, as if slighted
  that the imprisoned general had not come in person.
 'He didn't send me: I came.'
 'Why you?'

                527
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

 'It was my duty.'
 'Do you have any cigarettes?' croaked the old man.
 'No, I can't afford them,' said von Kleindorf.
  Walter said, 'The Russians will not allow my father to go.'Behind him, rain
  pattered on the window and then developed into a tattoo.
 'The British will request it.'
  'They still won't allow him to go. When they hear he's a defence witness
  for a German, they will obstruct things, the way they always do.'
  'Always do?' said von Kleindorf. The room had grown much darker, now that
  the rain was heavy. The figures of the two men were almost lost in the
  gloom. Only the rails of the brass bedstead shone in the light.
  'You don't live here in the Russian Zone,' said the son, 'or you'd know
  that already.'
 'Will you agree to come?' von Kleindorf asked the old man.
  Old Wilhelm leaned back and closed his eyes as he thought about it. He was
  a calculating old devil, wondering to what extent such evidence would be of
  benefit to his reputation and to that of his family. 'I will let you
  know,'he said.
  Kleindorf clicked his heels and bowed. 'Thank you, Baron Munte.'
  'Perhaps a written deposition,' offered the son as von Kleindorf turned to
  go.

      'And no one knows who those three are'

 It was one of the American lawyers, Colonel Bill Callaghan, who had made the
 fuss about Pauli Winter. It was he who suggested that Pauli Winter should be
 ordered to sign in and out of the accommodaticn he'd been given, and sign in
 and out at the Palace of Justice. But for that, no one would have reported
 him gone before the trial resumed the next morning.
  But Pauli Winter didn't go back to his billet that evening, and Colonel
  Peter Winter, U.S. Army, disappeared, too. Brian Samson cursed. On paper,
  Samson was the one responsible for Paul Winter, and here in Nuremberg paper
  was the only thing that mattered.
  It was bright moonlight. Three big trucks, despite their allweather tyres
  and four-Wheel drives, found the narrow Bavarian country road difficult
  going in the deep snow. Samson had picked up

                528
        'And no one knows who those three are'

 this hastily assigned detail, and the trucks, from the barracks in Bad
 Reichenhall. The drivers were not used to the sort of weather to be faced
 here in the Bavarian Alps at this time of year, and the soldiers were an
 assorted collection of men from outfits far and wide with nothing in common
 but a ticket to go home. They were jumpy and ill-tempered at being pulled
 out of their warm barracks on such a night.
  Leading the trucks was a jeep - General Glenn Rensselaer's Buick staff car
  would never have made it through this sort of terrain - with Captain Brian
  Samson and General Rensselaer riding in the back of it. In front, beside
  the driver, a map and a torch on his knee, was a young pink-faced New
  Yorker: a first lieutenant of the Counter Intelligence Corps named Busby.
  He was twenty-eight years old, an ex-cop, pushy the way cops so often
  become in big cities, but, on the basis of a few hours in his company,
  Brian Samson had decided that Busby was good at catching fugitives, and
  that was the task they'd been set.
 'How did You trace them?' General Rensselaer asked Busby.
  'There's an engineering battalion repairing that section of the highway
  near the Chiemsee. Everyone that goes along it has to wait until they give
  the okay.'
 'And these engineers identified them?'
 'Military Police control the traffic.'
 'Yes, of course.'
  'A colonel and a middle-aged German civilian: short and blond. Oh, they're
  your guys, all right. Don't worry.'
  Brian Samson stole a glance at General Rensselaer. Rensselaer would
  probably have preferred a less convincing description. He was still trying
  to believe that it was all a mistake.
  'It's happened before,' said Busby. 'These sons of bitches head for the
  Austrian border, hoping eventually to turn west for good old Switzerland,
  or south into Italy. We usually get them at one of the passes. There are
  not so many ways through the mountains still open at this time of year. But
  why the U.S. colonel? Is he a hostage or something?'
 'We don't know,' said General Rensselaer hurriedly.
  'That would be a new twist,' said Busby. 'Or are they in some kind of
  racket together? Jesus! I had to arrest a colonel last week: he had a
  truckload of narcotics, and he tried to bawl me out - can you believe it?'
 Rensselaer didn't respond. Busby used the flashlight for a quick

                529
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

 look at the map, then carefully extinguished it again, as regulations
 dictated. The official instructions were that all transport moving after
 dark should be on the lookout for units of the werewolf. These werewolf
 units, the intelligence bulletins said, were highly organized, well-equipped
 groups of dedicated and specially chosen German soldiers and SS men who'd
 gone to ground at the end of the war in order to stage a massive uprising
 against the occupation forces when the time was ripe. The fact that the
 werewolf existed only in the minds of the Allied intelligence officers had
 not prevented many soldiers from reporting its activity whenever the night
 was dark enough and the drink strong.
  'The cops at the Chiemsee roadworks noticed that they had a spade and tools
  on the jeep,' added Busby.
 'Don't all jeeps have a spade?' Rensselaer asked. 'This one does.'
  'Yeah, maybe they do. But if they are digging up some of those Reichsbank
  gold bars we keep hearing about, I'll call in for metal detectors. The
  other jeep has a radio.'
  'We won't need metal detectors,' said Rensselaer. He turned to Samson and
  quietly said, 'What do you make of it, Brian?'
  'Paul Winter was facing serious charges in London. It would be tempting for
  him to try to escape.'
  'You don't believe that, Brian?' It was a plea. 'And why Peter, too?,
  'I don't know, General. But Pauli saved his brother's life, not once but
  several times. Peter knows that. He carries that obligation like a burden
  round his neck.'
 'So he'd help, you mean?'
 'Yes, he'd help, General.'
 'I guess you know Peter as well as I do -- better, maybe.'
  'You get to know someone when you are shut up in a room together.'
 'And you don't like him.'
  'I've had Germans up to here, General Rensselaer.' He held a hand up to the
  level of his nose. 'When my contract ends I'm going to ask to go somewhere
  a long way away. Or I'll go into some other business.'
  Rensselaer said, 'You say that now, but I'll bet you'll end your days as a
  German specialist. Maybe living here in Germany.'
 'God forbid,' said Samson.
  Rensselaer leaned forward to speak to the lieutenant. 'When we get there,
  you spread your men out the way I showed you on the map.

                530
       'And no one knows who those three are'

 I'll go up to the house with Captain Samson. We know these two men. We'll
 talk to them.'
  'Whatever way you want it, General,' said Busby. 'But you'd better be
  armed.'
 'Captain Samson has his revolver. That will be enough.'
  'If you say so, General, but I'll have an awful lot of questions to answer
  if these sons of bitches nail you.'
 'Just make sure no one gets past.'
  'Sure thing, General. My men won't let a gopher past. My boys have done all
  this before There's no way your guys can get over to Austria except through
  Kniepass way to the west, or through Hallein. Even in high summer I doubt
  if anyone can hike over those mountains. Your Nazis will either have to
  come back this way or stay where they are until their butts freeze.'
 'They're not exactly Nazis,' said Rensselaer gently.
  'No! SureP said Lieutenant Busby. 'Speaking with these Krauts has convinced
  me that there were only three Nazis in the whole of Germany, and no one
  knows who those three are.'
  Rensselaer was angry, but he bit his lip and kept his anger under control.
  It wasn't appropriate for a general to bawl out a junior officer in such
  circumstances. And Samson couldn't be expected to reprimand the lieutenant:
  Samson wasn't even in the same army. In any case, it was a touchy subject.
  They reached Berchtesgaden. The lights were on, but the curfew had cleared
  the streets of Germans, and Americans, too, except for a sergeant in a jeep
  waiting outside the Berchtesgaden Hof, now a rest centre for ioist Airborne
  Division officers.
  'Hello, Siggi!' the lieutenant called when they reached the sergeant, There
  was a brief exchange. Siggi, a master sergeant, was a tiny man: he stood on
  the running board to talk to Busby. Then he got in his jeep and led the
  procession.
  It was still a distance to go to the Obersalzberg. They were climbing now.
  The road was steep and twisting, with hairpins. The trucks needed low gear
  and growled at the dark hillsides, and the snowclad trees growled back.
  They passed the roofed gate and sentry box that had once barred the way to
  the 'F(Ihrer District'; now it was damaged and empty. When they reached
  some old farm buildings, they slowed down. Then the jeep ahead went
  bouncing through an open gate and across the cobbled yard. Siggi, arm
  outstretched from the moving jeep, pointed to show them the trail. It was
  a long time since the two

               531
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

 fugitives had gone across the farm, but their footprints were still visible
 in the snow.
  When the jeep got to the second yard, on the far side of the deserted farm,
  the convoy halted. There was no road beyond this that the trucks could
  possibly follow. From here the ground rose sharply, first to thickly
  forested slopes, and beyond that to where the snowy Hohe G611 and Hohe
  Brett looked gigantic and threatening in the bright moonlight.
  The lieutenant jumped out, slung his carbine over his shoulder, and, with
  the help of his top sergeant, positioned his platoon along the cart track
  that marked the edge of the high summer pasture. When they were in a long
  line at the bottom of the slope, he advanced them uphill slowly until they
  were out of sight. The men had parkas, and the bitter cold made them pull
  the hoods over their heads and tie the laces tight. They stood under the
  trees, stamping and thumping their arms against their bodies in an effort
  to stay warm. More than one of them took a swig from a flask.
  Captain Samson took off his overcoat and put it on the back seat of the
  jeep, Then he strapped his webbing belt, shoulder strap and pistol back on
  over his battle dress.
  'Good luck, sir,' said Busby as Rensselaer and Samson started trudging up
  the steep path.
  Over his shoulder Rensselaer said, 'Just make sure you don't shoot my ass
  off, Lieutenant.'
  'Yes, sir,' said Busby, and saluted. His breath came as white smoke on the
  cold night air.
  The path was slippery and the ice cracked underfoot, and lots of snow fell
  from the trees, so that it seemed as if it had begun to snow again. After
  about fifteen minutes they were into the dark, thickly forested
  mountainside. It was not snowy underfoot here; the trees closed overhead.
  When they reached a firebreak, Rensselaer stopped to admire the view.
  Looking back, with the mountainside bathed in moonlight, they could see the
  whole 'Fiffirergebiet': the Hitler Berghof, Bormann's house
  characteristically close to his master, G6ring's flamboyant hunting lodge,
  the austere Party Guest House, and the huge SS barracks blocks surrounding
  the parade ground. All roofless ruins now, in a cratered landscape. The
  snowfall emphasized the destruction.
  To the northwest the lights of Berchtesgaden were as clear as the clustered
  stars. Behind the little town rose the mighty Latten-
  
                532
       'And no one knows who those three are'

 gebirge. There were mountains on every side. It was the view Hitler had
 had from the terrace of his Berghof. Why did Germans love to hide
 themselves in such mountain scenery? thought Samson. Was it something to
 do with their fundamental paranoia?
  'What a view, Brian,' said Rensselaer, although they both knew that in
  reality the elder man needed a break to catch his breath. 'You were smart
  to leave your overcoat behind.'
 Samson nodded.
  When they started again, the path was even steeper. Without the snow, it
  was no longer possible to see the footprints of the two brothers, but
  even in the depths of winter the underbrush was thick enough to see that
  no one had recently ventured far off the narrow track.
  They stopped again, and this time Rensselaer made no attempt to hide his
  breathlessness. lie unbuttoned his short overcoat and leaned against a
  tree. ' If you know what this is all about, Brian, this might be the
  time! to tell me.'
  Brian Samson looked at him as if trying to decide what to say. Then he
  said,.'l don't know Paul Winter personally - I only met him briefly a
  long time ago - but from what I hear he's never been able to face the
  real world. Now he's facing punishment, so he's running.'
 'You make him sound like a small child,' said Rensselaer.
 'That"s what everyone tells me he is,' said Samson.
  'You're a hard man, Captain Samson,'said Rensselaer. 'I wouldn't like to
  have you sit in judgement on me.'
  'I'm not sitting in judgement on anyone,' said Samson. 'But Winter is in
  my custody and I'm determined to bring him in.'
  'Everything by the book, eh?' It wasn't sarcastic: Rensselaer was trying
  to understand him.
 'You're not suggesting that we turn him loose, General?'
 'No. But did you have to sound reveille for this three-ring circus?'
  'Nuremberg C.I.C. office is my official contact number. Lieutenant Busby
  is the duty-operations officer today.'
  'You could have phoned me, Samson. At my apartment. You have the number.'
  'I have your phone number, General Rensselaer, and I phoned you
  immediately after talking to the C.I.C.'
 'A pity it wasn't before you phoned the C.I.C.'
  'That's not reasonable, General. You know as well as I do that Paul
  Winter was under surveillance. And that surveillance was ordered by

                533
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

 an American officer: Colonel Bill Callaghan. It wasn't anything that was
 requested by my superiors, or by me.'
 'How did you come to know that, Captain?'
  'I made it my business to find out, General Rensselaer. When someone
  interferes with the processing of a prisoner in my custody, I like to know
  what it's all about.'
  Glenn Rensselaer nodded. This Englishman was an abrasive guy. No wonder
  Peter had never been able to hit it off with him. But he was right, of
  course. He knew his facts-, that was why it was so miserable to argue with
  him. It was like trying to talk back to a speak-your-weight machine. 'I
  guess you're right, Captain. I shouldn't have brought it up.' He looked up
  the path and said, 'Okay. Let's go, then. The sooner we find out the
  answers to this mystery, the better.'
  The first thing they came to was a little log cabin, primitive
  accommodation used by the cow herds in the summer months, when the cattle
  go to graze on the higher slopes. It stood in the middle of a small
  clearing. At the side of the cabin, cut wood had been stacked in the
  astonishingly careful way it is always arranged in this part of Europe. The
  cut ends of the logs made a pattern of golden crescents.
  There were a few stone steps and wrought-iron gates on a decorative
  brickwork porch. Over the porch was a beautifully carved log incised with
  the words 'Haus Pauli', and carved edelweiss flowers each side. Then,
  beyond the porch, higher up still, was the house that Harald Winter had
  given to his son. The windows were dark, but the shutters on one window had
  been opened, as if to let the moonlight in.
  Samson drew his Webley service revolver and called, 'Winter! Come out with
  your hands up.'
 Nothing happened.
  Then Rensselaer tried: 'Pauli, it's Glenn! Come on out. It's going to be
  okay.'
 Still nothing.
  'Maybe they can't hear. The windows are closed.' Rensselaer walked to the
  door of the house. It was unlocked. He opened it, but Samson pushed past
  him and went in, gun ready. It was dark inside. He went through the lobby
  to the big sitting room. The light through the window showed that the place
  was empty. Curtains, carpets, books, pictures and furniture had all been
  stolen by the sort of thieves who call themselves souvenir hunters. Even a
  gilded lamp bracket had been torn out of the plaster, broken and left
  dangling.

                534
       'And no one knows who those three are'

  They went upstairs. It was the same throughout the house. Only one
  bedroom had been recently occupied. In it was an iron bed, some used
  bedding, two wooden chairs and a dented metal steamer trunk in the
  corner. The trunk was dirty and looked as if it had been dug out of the
  hard, frozen ground. They went across to it, and Rensselaer shone his
  flashlight inside. It was empty except for an old brass padlock with a
  key still in it.
 'They collected something,' said Samson.
  'It looks that way.' Glenn Rensselaer opened the closet door. There were
  clothes hanging there: a grey suit and some working trousers. There were
  women's clothes, too, black dresses and a petticoat that would fit
  someone of Inge's shape and size.
  'They must be Reichsminister Esser's clothes,' said Captain Samson. 'He
  was arrested in this house.'
 'It's Pauli Winter's house,' said Glenn Rensselaer.
 'Yes, I know,' said Captain Samson.
 'Youknow everything, don't you?' said Glenn Rensselaer.
 'About Paul Winter? Yes, I do.'
 'Then maybe you could tell me where his wife, Inge, is.'
 'Garmisch: the White Horse Inn.'
 'The what?'
  'It's an expensive nightclub for black-marketeers and other lowlife. They
  feature a dance band. She sings there.'
 'Sings! Inge Winter? Jesus, she's a middle-aged wornan.'
 'There's no law against old ladies' singing,' said Samson.
  Rensselaer said nothing for fear of showing his anger. He resented
  Captain Samson's manner, just as he resented Lieutenant Busby's
  impertinence. It had become a young man's world: courtesy had gone.
  After another quick look round the house, the two men came outside,
  looking for footprints. They found them too late.
  The sound of the shooting was loud in the bright, still night. Samson
  recognized it: a Browning automatic rifle-, they made a distinctive
  noise.
  'Oh my God!' said Rensselaer. He was a tired old man, but his anxiety
  made him go hurrying back down the treacherous path, sliding sometimes
  as he missed his footing.
  Captain Samson didn't hurry. Whatever had happened would be waiting for
  him when he got there. Right from the start he'd had the feeling that
  Lieutenant Busby's men were too damned jumpy.

                535
         Nineteen hundred and forty-five

 The two bodies were close together, sprawled in the snow at that place on
 the mountainside where the trees opened up and gave way to the
 snow-covered open grass of the upper pastures. One of the men -the blond
 one - had bled to form a large patch of coloured snow that had melted and
 quickly refrozen, so that it shone with a smooth, glossy surface. Neither
 man was armed. Peter was wearing a palekhaki trenchcoat,- it wasn't easy
 to distinguish him as an officer in uniform. The coat was unbuttoned and
 had opened to its full shape, like wings.
  Pauli was wearing an old blue overcoat, the same one he'd been wearingfor
  years. It was an expensive loden that Inge had chosen at a time when she
  chose just about everything.
  Pauli was huddled on his side; his arms had twisted under him as he fell.
  His knees were drawn up in the foetal position, the muscles constricted
  in the way that so often comes with the final moments of such deaths.
  Peter, immediately behind him, was spread-eagled, face down. To General
  Glenn Rensselaer it seemed as if Peter's arm was reaching out towards,
  his younger brother's shoulder.

 536
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