Bergemann had adopted some aspects of Willi’s methodology, and more importantly he had adopted his rigor. He was not as brilliant as Willi, but he made up for it in persistence. And, to his credit, he was not as uncompromising as Willi. He had remained in the Party and in the SA, not out of conviction, but as a useful cover. His storm trooper uniform, which he put on when it was helpful, got him in doors and loosened tongues that might otherwise not have been available to him. He now found satisfaction in his work, and in his double life too.
Bergemann’s wife Louise was as grateful to Willi as Hans was, maybe more so, because Willi had given her a new husband. The new Bergemann, a sincere and disciplined man, had replaced the old lazy, indifferent Bergemann. She would have sworn the two Hans Bergemanns not only acted different, they looked different. The new Hans was more alert, more in the moment. His face was enlivened, not slack, and he was always in motion. And he was more loving than he had been. Louise believed she owed Willi her newfound happiness. Willi denied it. ‘That’s all up to you two,’ he said. Willi didn’t always realize the part he played in other people’s lives.
The morning was frosty, but it was the first day of March, and Willi could feel the warmth of the sun on his hands and face. He sat in a cafe watching the street. The linden trees looked like they were dead, but soon they would have buds, then leaves. Then the birds would come. Willi had not seen Lola for twenty years – or was it even longer – but he recognized her as soon as she turned the corner. There was her red hair, of course, but also her light step. She went into the small grocery across the street. He waited ten minutes to be certain she hadn’t been followed, paid for his coffee, and crossed the street.
Willi looked stern and Lola cocked her head slightly and brushed a red curl back from her forehead as they shook hands. She smiled. She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. To anyone watching, they might have been neighbors or colleagues, not friends who hadn’t seen one another in a very long time. As they looked into each other’s eyes, each of them was rearranging the furnishing of his own existence, to make room for this well known, even beloved, but entirely unexpected stranger.
Willi looked around. ‘Let’s walk, shall we?’ he said, taking Lola’s arm. As they walked, Lola told him what she had overheard at work. Willi asked her for details, and she told him everything she remembered the drunken SS men saying. ‘It sounded like they were coming for you. I had to warn you,’ she said.
‘I am very grateful,’ he said.
‘Are they coming for you?’ she said.
‘It’s likely,’ he said. Willi had already received other indications, and had been clearing out of his apartment.
‘Can I help you?’ she said.
‘No,’ said Willi. That sounded too hard. ‘You already have,’ he said. ‘But we shouldn’t meet again. I don’t want you involved.’ Willi felt a lump in his throat as he said it, so he said it again. He was having trouble navigating these waters. ‘I’ve always … been fond of you, Lola, but I can’t have you involved in my life.’
‘How have you been getting along, Willi?’ she said. ‘And thank you for stopping by Mutti and Papa’s.’
‘I had heard he was sick, and I’m glad he’s better. Don’t change the subject, Lola. Please. My life is a dangerous place. Especially right now.’
‘I’m getting that sense,’ she said. ‘Are you married?’
‘No,’ said Willi. ‘Lola, you’re not listening to me.’
‘Oh, yes, I am, Willi. You’re the one not listening: If I hadn’t overheard your name – hadn’t learned that the SS and the police are interested in you, and that they may know your whereabouts—’
‘I’m not your responsibility, Lola—’
‘You’re my friend, Willi; that’s an even bigger responsibility.’
And so, a few nights later, when the SS battered his door in, Willi and all his belongings were gone. The apartment had been stripped of every stick of furniture, every belonging. Only a lone teakettle had been left on the stove. The SS men circled around it as though it were explosive.
A furious manhunt followed. The SS went to all the sites they thought Willi frequented. It turned out that they knew very little about the man, despite his more than fifteen years on the force. ‘He’s like a goddamned ghost,’ said Obersturmbannführer Tannenwald. Even when they thought they were getting close, Willi would be several steps ahead of them.
Schloß Barzelhof
Willi was born into privilege. His grandfather had invented and manufactured the seamless ceramic pipe used in the reconstruction of Munich’s sewer system. The family lived in a villa he had built in Bogenhausen, on the outskirts of Munich. Willi had spent an idyllic childhood there, playing in the great walled garden, being pampered and cared for by his loving parents and grandparents.
In 1905, when Willi was twelve and seemed to be drifting through school, he was sent off to Schloß Barzelhof, a military boarding school in a castle in the Bavarian Forest near Passau. Many of the instructors at Barzelhof had served in the Imperial German Army.
Every day at five o’clock, the boys – there were about forty of them – were awakened. After washing up, they went off for an hour of running and calisthenics. After that they had a cold shower, put on their uniforms and marched to breakfast. Then came chapel, then classes – Latin, Greek, mathematics, history, geography, and German. At four they marched to the large gloomy common room where they did their assignments until supper at six.
After supper they returned to the common room for more study overseen by faculty proctors. There was no talking allowed. The long study tables were illuminated by gas lights. A fire crackled in the enormous fireplace. At eight thirty they went up to the dormitory where each boy had a cot and a footlocker for his belongings.
A strict code of conduct and an exaggerated sense of honor and duty prevailed at Schloß Barzelhof. It was no different from many other military boarding schools in that regard. And, like other such schools, it had its own way of doing things, what was spoken of as ‘the Barzelhof culture.’ This included certain harmless rituals, like the Polar Bear Swim on the first day of spring. The ice that remained along the edge of the river would be broken up and removed, and boys and teachers alike peeled off their clothes and jumped in. And just as quickly they scrambled out, shrieking and laughing and slapping their sides against the stabbing cold.
Barzelhof culture also included – unofficially, of course – hazing, particularly for those boys who were seen as not fitting in. The faculty did not participate in this abuse, but they did not discourage it either. Many of them had taken part in such torments themselves when they had been in school, either at Barzelhof or at some other institution. They believed in it, thought it toughened the boys up, made men of them.
Eberhardt von Hohenstein and Erich Lobe were a year ahead of Willi. They liked Willi well enough and set about teaching him the Barzelhof ropes – which teachers let you get away with stuff and which didn’t, how to sneak out of the dormitory if you were given detention, that sort of thing. Eberhardt’s father was a diplomat stationed in the United States, and before that he had been stationed in Singapore and South Africa. Eberhardt could tell wonderful stories about places Willi could only dream of.
Willi was skinny and awkward, but he was a fast runner and an excellent soccer player, so Eberhardt and Erich asked him to join their soccer team. Willi was pleased and flattered. And he made a good addition to the team, passing the ball skillfully, dribbling downfield at full speed, and scoring against other teams with relative ease.
Andrea Welke was one of the boys who didn’t fit in. He was small and had a dark complexion, and because a serious case of rheumatic fever had left his heart weakened, he was excused from all physical activity, a fact that did not sit well with the rest of the boys or, for that matter, with some of the teachers. One of the teachers, a particularly bitter and unpleasant former cavalry officer, liked to pick on Welke, and some of the other boys followed suit. He would
get jostled marching between classes, or someone would unscrew the salt shaker so Andrea would dump a shaker full of salt on his meal. Eberhardt and Erich decided to have a little fun with Welke and they invited Willi to join them.
‘Andrea,’ said Erich, ‘have you seen the comet?’
‘What comet?’ said Andrea.
‘Schiller’s comet. You can see it tonight. It’s amazing. Right, Eberhardt?’
‘Spectacular,’ said Eberhardt. ‘Really.’ He winked at Willi.
‘We’ll wait until lights out and then sneak out,’ said Erich.
‘I don’t know,’ said Andrea. He didn’t like the idea. They might get caught and then they’d be in trouble. At the same time, he didn’t want to miss out on the chance to be friends with Erich and Eberhardt whom everyone admired. He looked at Willi for reassurance.
‘It’ll be fun, Andrea,’ said Willi. ‘Come on.’
After lights out the four boys crept downstairs and out of the castle. It was a very dark night. They made their way single file through the woods.
After a short while, Andrea became fearful and said, ‘I want to go back.’
‘It’s just a little further,’ said Erich. ‘Just up there at the edge of the woods we’ll see the comet.’
‘No, I’m going back,’ said Andrea.
‘Why?’ said Eberhardt. ‘Are you scared?’
‘There’s no comet,’ said Andrea. ‘Is there?’
‘Yes, there is,’ said Erich.
‘I’m going back,’ said Andrea. He turned around.
‘No, you’re not,’ said Eberhardt. ‘Keep going.’ He pushed Andrea, who fell. ‘Get up,’ said Eberhardt. Andrea didn’t move. ‘Get up, you little cunt.’ He kicked Andrea.
Willi had known the comet was a ruse to get Andrea out of the building, but he hadn’t thought about what Eberhardt and Erich might want to do with him. ‘Come on, guys,’ said Willi. ‘Let’s go back.’
Eberhardt and Erich turned on Willi. ‘What, Geismeier, are you a cunt too?’
‘Get up, Welke,’ said Eberhardt. But Andrea stayed on the ground. He was breathing heavily and making odd moaning sounds.
Now Eberhardt and Erich started getting nervous. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you, Welke?’ said Eberhardt. ‘Get the hell up.’
‘He’s faking,’ said Erich.
‘No, he isn’t,’ said Willi.
‘Shut up, Geismeier.’
‘Leave him alone,’ said Willi.
‘Shut up, you goddamn weasel,’ said Erich. He put his fist in Willi’s face. The two boys stared at one another. Finally Erich realized Willi wasn’t going to back down. ‘Let’s go, Eberhardt,’ he said. ‘These two girls want to be alone.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Eberhardt with a laugh. He spat in Willi’s direction as they left.
Willi helped Andrea stand and then supported him as they made their way back to the building. The duty officer was waiting for them inside the front door.
The next morning Willi was summoned to the commandant’s office. Erich and Eberhardt had reported seeing Geismeier and Welke sneak out of the building. They didn’t know where they had gone, but they were sure they were up to no good.
Willi stood at attention. The commandant was angry. ‘You’re in serious trouble, Geismeier. This is a serious infraction of the Barzelhof code of honor.’
Willi told about the Schiller comet and about luring Welke out to the woods. The commandant wanted to know whose idea it was. Willi said it had been the three of them: Erich, Eberhardt, and him.
‘I don’t believe you, Geismeier,’ said the commandant. ‘Von Hohenstein and Lobe both saw you go and they reported it. I want the truth, Geismeier, and I want it now.’
‘They were with us, sir.’
‘I said no lies, Geismeier.’
‘I’m not lying, sir,’ said Willi.
‘One more chance, Geismeier. Tell me what you and Welke were up to. We don’t tolerate lies at Barzelhof, Geismeier.’
‘I’m telling you the truth, sir.’
The commandant had faced situations like this before – boys experimenting with one another, their first tentative sexual explorations, and this had to be nipped in the bud. ‘There’s no room for deviancy at Barzelhof, Geismeier. We’re all men here, not fairies. We won’t stand for deviancy of any sort.’ The commandant had read a book about human psychology once, and deviancy was the one concept that had stayed with him. He had expanded the concept to mean any behavior he regarded as unmanly.
‘Do you know what deviancy is, Geismeier? I might have suspected Welke of deviant behavior, Geismeier. But you surprise me.’
‘That’s not what happened,’ said Willi. ‘Erich and Eberhardt are lying.’
‘I won’t stand for that, Geismeier. That is an unfounded accusation. They’re both trustworthy men. They’re Barzelhof men.’ Which meant that their fathers and grandfathers had gone through Barzelhof. ‘Enough of the lies and false accusations. I want the truth.’
Tears of anger sprang into Willi’s eyes. ‘I’m telling the truth. I’m not lying!’ he said. ‘They’re lying.’
Willi had gone along with the prank at first, so he had been part of it. He had known Andrea was sickly, and that he was picked on because he was different. And Willi had been slow and tentative in his defense of Andrea, even once he was in distress. But then he had tried to defend the boy, and had helped him home. So that was something, wasn’t it? That was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? And yet the commandant, the one man responsible for discipline and fairness at the school, was accepting the obviously untrue accusations of two bullies because they were ‘Barzelhof men.’
Andrea’s and Willi’s parents received letters from the commandant explaining the obligations of a Schloß Barzelhof education. ‘Becoming a Barzelhof Man is a High Achievement,’ he wrote. The commandant favored upper case letters when he wanted to emphasize the importance of certain ideas. ‘But, like all Worthwhile Achievements, it is not Something Everyone Can Achieve. It demands Much but offers Much in Return.’ Andrea and Willi, being guilty of serious violations of the school’s code of honor, were evidently not cut out to be Barzelhof men. Arrangements should be made to fetch them home as soon as possible. ‘We wish your son Well in his Future Endeavors, and Hope he will have Learned from his Failures here at Schloß Barzelhof.’
After that night’s adventure, Andrea had been taken to a clinic in Passau. His mother arrived in a coach two days later to take him home. Willi continued with the daily Barzelhof routine for the next several days, but was not permitted to wear the Barzelhof uniform. And the other boys were under orders to shun him, which they did.
Willi gazed from the train window watching the colorless March landscape slip by – the farms with smoke spiraling up from the chimneys, the fields with strips of snow between stubble where last summer’s crops had been, the impenetrable black shadows of the evergreen forest, and before long the gloomy mills and industrial buildings of Munich. Willi and his father spoke very little during the ride. Willi’s father tried to embrace his son, but Willi did not want to be embraced. He did not want to be comforted. Nothing had changed between them, but Willi’s father could see that something momentous had happened to Willi. He hoped Willi had not been damaged by the experience.
Willi had by no means been damaged. In fact, it was as though a veil had lifted from in front of Willi’s eyes, and understanding had flooded in. Willi understood the commandant’s motivation and his failure. He understood that in the adult world, the world he was soon to enter, truth, fairness, honesty, things adults talked on and on about, were often less important than other trivial things, like manliness, tribal loyalty, popularity. He could not have articulated this until much later, but Willi recognized then and there where he stood in the world and what he had to do. For instance, he would have known even then that he had no choice now but to try to find out who had attacked and hurt Lola, and then bring him to justice.
As he grew up, he became a stu
dent of human psychology and a lover of justice. The first time Willi read a Shakespeare play – he was in university and it was Julius Caesar – it took him back to Schloß Barzelhof. The commandant, Andrea Welke, Eberhardt von Hohenstein, all the others, they were all there. Shakespeare’s understanding of their complicated and contradictory motives was profound and exact. Willi found in Shakespeare an exhaustive catalogue of human behavior.
He decided to learn English so he could read the plays in their original language. He found a professor who was willing to indulge his interest, and who could guide him. He charted the plays’ structures, scrutinized the make-up and motivation of the characters, and discovered what drove them, both their inner dynamics, and their interactions which made up, to his way of thinking, a kind of metaphysical clockwork. He even spent a year in England, just so he could continue his studies where Shakespeare had lived and worked.
To everyone’s surprise, after these years of study Willi joined the Munich police force. He saw something Shakespearean in police work, something he did not find in the academic world or in the manufacture of seamless ceramic pipe. After the slapdash and, to his mind, inferior training he got at the police academy, Willi saw no reason not to apply the methods that had unlocked the secrets of Shakespearean drama for him to the study of criminal behavior. Willi examined the setting and circumstances of every case that came his way, as though it were a play, as though its dynamics were a clue to how it had unfolded. He found the seeds of the tragedy or comedy (some crimes were comic) tucked in obscure corners of the larger drama. He searched out and examined the actions and motives of even the minor characters, believing that their apparently incidental activity could well have influenced the trajectory of the principals. After all, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had moved Hamlet; three old hags had influenced Macbeth. Predicting Macbeth’s downfall had, in a sense, led to his downfall. And Richard the Third bounced off one secondary character after the other, thinking all the while he was a free agent.
The Constant Man Page 2
