“Ilse, dear, you know that when we took you in you were in a bad way. I wouldn’t have wanted—”
“Stop right there, Otto. I know whose idea that was. But don’t think I’m going to fall for the routine that you’re only a puppet. You’re the one who’s controlled my sister from the very start, making her pay dearly for the mistake she made. And for the things you’ve done hiding behind that mistake.”
Otto took a step back, shocked at the anger that seethed from Ilse’s lips. The monocle fell from his eye and swung against the front of his overcoat like a condemned man hanging from a gibbet.
“You surprise me, Ilse. They told me you’d—”
Ilse gave a joyless laugh.
“Lost it? Gone crazy? No, Otto. I’m quite sane. I’ve chosen to remain silent all this time because I’m afraid of what my son might do if he found out the truth.”
“So stop him. Because he’s going too far.”
“So that’s why you’ve come,” she said, unable to contain her scorn. “You’re afraid the past will finally catch up with you.”
The baron took a step toward Ilse. Paul’s mother moved back against the wall as Otto brought his face up close to hers.
“Now, listen carefully, Ilse. You’re the only link there is to that night. If you don’t stop him before it’s too late, I shall have to break that link.”
“Go on, then, Otto, kill me,” said Ilse, feigning a bravery she didn’t feel. “But you should know I’ve written a letter revealing the whole affair. All of it. If anything happens to me, Paul will receive it.”
“But . . . you can’t be serious! You can’t write that down! What if it falls into the wrong hands?”
Ilse didn’t reply. All she did was stare at him. Otto tried to hold her stare, a tall, solid, well-dressed man facing down a fragile woman in ragged clothes who clung to her broom to stop herself from falling.
Finally the baron gave up.
“It doesn’t end here,” said Otto, turning and rushing out.
36
“You called for me, Father?”
Otto glanced at Jürgen with misgiving. It had been weeks since he’d last seen him, and he still found it hard to identify the uniformed figure standing in his dining room as his son. He was suddenly aware of how Jürgen’s shoulders filled the brown shirt, how the red armband with the twisted cross framed his thick biceps, how the black boots increased the young man’s stature to the point where he had to duck slightly to go under the door frame. He felt a hint of pride, but at the same time he was overwhelmed by a wave of self-pity. He couldn’t help but draw comparisons to himself: Otto was fifty-two, and he felt old and tired.
“You haven’t been home for a long time, Jürgen.”
“I’ve had important things to do.”
The baron didn’t reply. Though he did understand the Nazis’ ideals, he had never really believed in them. Like the great majority of Munich’s high society, he considered them to be a party with little promise, condemned to become extinct. If they’d come so far, it was only because they were benefiting from a social situation that was so dramatic, the underprivileged would believe any extremist prepared to make them wild promises. But at that moment he did not have time for subtleties.
“So much so that you neglect your mother? She’s been worried about you. Might we know where you’ve been sleeping?”
“In SA quarters.”
“This year you were meant to have begun your university studies, two years late!” said Otto, shaking his head. “It’s already November, and you still haven’t shown up for a single class.”
“I’m in a position of responsibility.”
Otto watched as the pieces of the image he’d preserved of this ill-mannered adolescent—who not long ago would have hurled a cup onto the floor because the tea was too sweet for him—finally disintegrated. He wondered what the best way of approaching him would be. A lot was riding on Jürgen’s doing as he was told.
He’d lain awake for several nights, tossing and turning on his mattress, before deciding to call on his son.
“A position of responsibility, you say?”
“I protect the most important man in Germany.”
“‘The most important man in Germany,’” mimicked his father. “You, the future Baron von Schroeder, hired thug to an obscure Austrian corporal with delusions of grandeur. You must be proud.”
Jürgen flinched as though he’d just been struck.
“You don’t understand . . .”
“Enough! I want you to do something important. You’re the only person I can trust to do it.”
Jürgen was confused by the change of tack. His reply died on his lips as his curiosity took over.
“What is it?”
“I’ve found your aunt and your cousin.”
Jürgen didn’t respond. He sat down next to his father and took the patch from his eye, revealing the unnatural void beneath the wrinkled skin of his eyelid. He stroked the skin slowly.
“Where?” he asked, his voice cold and distant.
“In a boardinghouse in Schwabing. But I forbid you even to think about revenge. We have something much more important to deal with. I want you to go to your aunt’s room, search it from top to bottom, and bring me any papers you find. Especially any that are handwritten. Letters, notes—anything.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You can’t tell me? You bring me here, you ask for my help after you’ve denied me the chance to go after the person who did this to me—the same person who gave my sick brother a pistol so he could blow his brains out. You forbid me all this, and then you expect me to obey you without any explanation?” Jürgen was shouting now.
“You’ll do what I tell you to do, unless you want me to cut you off!”
“Go ahead, Father. I’ve never much cared for debts. There’s only one thing left of value, and you can’t take that away from me. I’ll inherit your title whether you like it or not.” Jürgen went out of the dining room, slamming the door shut behind him. He was about to go out into the street, when a voice stopped him.
“Son, wait.”
He turned. Brunhilda was coming down the stairs.
“Mother.”
She went up to him and kissed his cheek. She had to stand on tiptoe to do it. She straightened his black tie and with her fingertips she caressed the place where his right eye had once been. Jürgen drew back and pulled down the patch.
“You have to do as your father asks.”
“I . . .”
“You have to do what you’re told, Jürgen. He’ll be proud of you if you do. And so will I.”
Brunhilda kept talking for some time. Her voice was sweet and to Jürgen it conjured up images and feelings he hadn’t experienced for a long time. He had always been her favorite. She had always treated him differently, never denied him anything. He wanted to curl up in her lap, as he did when he was a child and summer seemed never-ending.
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow’s the eighth of November, Mother. I can’t—”
“It has to be tomorrow afternoon. Your father’s been watching the boardinghouse, and Paul’s never there at that time.”
“But I already have plans!”
“Are they more important than your own family, Jürgen?”
Brunhilda brought her hand to his face once more. This time Jürgen didn’t recoil.
“I suppose I could do it, if I’m quick.”
“Good boy. And when you’ve got the papers,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, “bring them to me first. Don’t say a word to your father.”
37
From the corner, Alys watched Manfred alighting from the trolley. She had taken up her position close to her old house, as she had done every week for the past two years, in order to see her brother for a few moments. Never before had she so powerfully felt the need to approach him, to speak to him, to give up once and for all and
return home. She wondered what her father would do if she appeared.
I can’t do it, especially like . . . like this. It would be like finally admitting he’s right. It would be like dying.
Her gaze followed Manfred, who was turning into a good-looking young man. Unruly hair stuck out from under his cap, his hands were in his pockets, and there was sheet music tucked under his arm.
I bet he’s still terrible at the piano, thought Alys with a mixture of irritation and regret.
Manfred walked along the pavement and, before reaching the gate to his house, stopped at the sweetshop. Alys smiled. She’d seen him do this the first time two years ago, when she’d discovered by chance that on Thursdays her brother came back from his piano lessons on public transport instead of in their father’s chauffeur-driven Mercedes. Half an hour later Alys had gone into the sweetshop and bribed a shop assistant to give Manfred a packet of toffees with a note inside when he came the following week. She’d hastily scribbled
It’s me. Come every Thursday, I’ll leave you a note. Ask for Ingrid, give her your reply.
Love you—A.
For the next seven days she waited impatiently, fearful that her brother would not want to answer, or that he was angry because she had left without saying good-bye. His reply, however, was typical of Manfred. As though he’d just seen her ten minutes earlier, his note started with a funny story about the Swiss and the Italians, and ended up telling her things about school and what had happened since he last heard from her. Hearing from her brother again filled Alys with happiness, but there was one line, the last, that confirmed her worst fears.
Papa is still looking for you.
She ran out of the sweetshop, afraid that someone might recognize her. But in spite of the danger she returned every week, always pulling her hat down to her eyebrows and wearing an overcoat or scarf that disguised her features. She never raised her face toward her father’s window, in case he should be looking and recognize her. And each week, however dreadful her own situation, she was comforted by the daily successes, the small victories and defeats in Manfred’s life. When he won an athletics medal at the age of twelve, she cried with happiness. When he received a thrashing in the schoolyard because he’d confronted some children who’d called him a “filthy Jew,” she howled with rage. Insubstantial though they were, those letters bound her to the memory of a happy past.
On that particular Thursday, November 8, Alys waited for a slightly shorter time than usual, fearing that if she stayed around Prinzregentenplatz for very long her doubts would overcome her and she’d go for the easiest—and worst possible—option. She went into the shop, asked for a packet of mint toffees, and paid three times the standard price, as usual. She would wait till she was on the trolley, but that day she looked immediately for the piece of paper inside the wrapping. There were just five words, but they were enough to make her hands shake.
They’ve found me out. Run.
She had to stop herself from screaming.
Keep your head down, walk slowly, don’t look to the side. Maybe they’re not watching the shop.
She opened the door and stepped out into the street. She couldn’t help glancing behind as she walked away.
Two men in raincoats were following her, less than sixty yards away. One of them, realizing she’d seen them, gestured to the other and both picked up the pace.
Shit!
Alys tried to walk as fast as she could without breaking into a run. She didn’t want to run the risk of attracting the attention of a policeman because if he stopped her, the two men would catch up, and then she’d be done for. No doubt they were detectives hired by her father, who would make up a story in order to detain her or take her back to the family home. Legally she was not yet an adult—there were still eleven months to go before she turned twenty-one—so she would be completely at her father’s mercy.
She crossed the street without stopping to look. A bicycle brushed past her, and the boy riding it lost control and fell to the ground, obstructing Alys’s pursuers.
“You crazy or what?” shouted the lad, holding his injured knees.
Alys looked back again and saw that the two men had managed to cross the road, taking advantage of a break in the traffic. They were less than ten meters away, and quickly gaining ground.
Not far to the trolley now.
She cursed her shoes, which had wooden soles that made her skid slightly on the wet pavement. The bag where she kept her camera knocked against her hips, and she clung to the strap, which she wore diagonally across her chest.
It was obvious that she wasn’t going to make it unless she could come up with something quickly. She could sense her pursuers right behind her.
It can’t happen. Not when I’m so close.
At that moment a group of uniformed schoolboys came around the corner in front of her, led by a master who was accompanying them to the trolley stop. The boys, twenty or so of them all lined up together, cut her off from the road.
Alys managed to push through and reach the other side of the group, just in time. The trolley rolled along its tracks, sounding its bell as it approached.
Reaching out, Alys grabbed hold of the bar and stepped onto the front of the trolley. The driver reduced his speed slightly as she did so. When she was safely aboard the packed vehicle, Alys turned around to look at the street.
Her pursuers were nowhere to be seen.
With a sigh of relief, Alys paid and clung to the bar with trembling hands, quite oblivious to the two figures in hats and raincoats who at that moment were boarding the back of the trolley.
Paul was waiting for her on the Rosenheimerstrasse, close to the Ludwigsbrücke. When he saw her get off the trolley he went to give her a kiss, but he stopped when he saw the concern on her face.
“What’s wrong?”
Alys closed her eyes and sank into Paul’s strong arms. In the safety of his embrace, she did not spot her two pursuers getting off the trolley and entering a nearby café.
“I went to get my brother’s letter, like I do every Thursday, but I was followed. I won’t be able to use that method of contact anymore.”
“That’s terrible! Are you all right?”
Alys hesitated before answering. Should she tell him everything?
It would be so easy to tell him. Just open my mouth and let those two words out. So easy . . . and so impossible.
“Yes, I suppose so. I lost them before I got on the trolley.”
“All right, then . . . but I think you ought to cancel tonight,” said Paul.
“I can’t, it’s my first commission.”
After months of persistence, she had finally come to the attention of the head of photography at the Munich Allgemeine newspaper. He had told her to go that evening to the Bürgerbräukeller, a beer hall, fewer than thirty steps from where they were now. The state commissioner of Bavaria, Gustav Ritter von Kahr, would be giving a speech in half an hour. For Alys, the chance to stop spending her nights enslaved in the club and begin making a living from the thing she most enjoyed, photography, was a dream come true.
“But after what’s happened . . . don’t you want to just go to your apartment?” Paul asked.
“Do you realize how important tonight is to me? I’ve been waiting months for an opportunity like this!”
“Calm down, Alys. You’re making a scene.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down! You’re the one who needs to calm down!”
“Please, Alys. You’re exaggerating,” said Paul.
“Exaggerating! That’s just what I needed to hear,” she snorted, turning and walking off toward the beer hall.
“Wait! Weren’t we going to have a coffee first?”
“Have one yourself!”
“Don’t you at least want me to go with you? These political meetings can be dangerous: people get drunk and sometimes arguments break out.”
The moment these words left his mouth, Paul knew he’d put his foot right in it. He wished he c
ould catch them in flight and swallow them back down, but it was too late.
“I don’t need you to protect me, Paul,” replied Alys icily.
“I’m sorry, Alys, I didn’t mean—”
“Good evening, Paul,” she said, joining the crowd of laughing people going inside.
Paul was left alone in the middle of the crowded street, wanting to strangle someone, to scream, to kick the ground and cry.
It was seven in the evening.
38
The hardest thing had been to slip into the boardinghouse unnoticed.
The landlady was hanging around the entrance like a bloodhound with her overall and broom. Jürgen had had to wait a couple of hours, wandering around the neighborhood and watching the entrance to the building surreptitiously. He couldn’t risk doing so brazenly, as he had to be sure he wouldn’t be recognized later. In the bustling street it was unlikely that anyone would pay much attention to a man in a black overcoat and hat walking with a newspaper under his arm.
He’d hidden his cudgel in the folded paper and, fearful that it might fall, squeezed it so hard against his armpit that the next day he would have a considerable bruise. Under his civilian clothes he was wearing the brown uniform of the SA, which would certainly have attracted too much attention in an area that was as full of Jews as this one. His cap was in his pocket and he’d left his boots at the barracks, choosing a pair of sturdy shoes instead.
Finally, after going past many times, he managed to find a breach in the line of defense. The landlady left her broom leaning against the wall and disappeared through a small inner door, perhaps to prepare dinner. Jürgen made the most of this gap to slip into the house and trot up the stairs to the top floor. Having passed various landings and corridors, he found himself outside Ilse Reiner’s door.
He knocked.
If she’s not here, everything will be easier, thought Jürgen, anxious to complete the task as soon as possible and cross over to the east bank of the Isar, where the members of the Stosstrupp had been told to meet two hours earlier. It was a historic day and here he was, wasting his time in some intrigue he couldn’t have cared less about.