by Paul Colize
‘It’s been snowing?’
‘It certainly has been snowing! The biggest snowfall across the country for seventy years!’
He walked into the room.
X Midi was looking out for him. A mixture of fear and relief showed in his eyes.
Dominique crossed the room and took X Midi’s hand in his.
‘Forgive me, Eddy, I’m late. It’s been snowing all night. Thirty centimetres of snow in the streets! Tonight is Christmas Eve. I was planning a trip to Paris to spend it with my family, but the roads aren’t clear and the Thalys isn’t running.’
The man held his gaze. He seemed to be calming down.
Dominique softened his voice.
‘Where you were last Christmas? With your family, I suppose? Everyone has some family somewhere. Would you like to see yours again?’
X Midi stifled a moan and flexed his fingers.
Dominique watched him for a few moments. The man rolled his head from side to side, moving his lips.
Dominique bent over him.
‘Do you want to tell me something, Eddy?’
The man stared into the physio’s eyes and blinked rapidly, once.
Dominique felt his heart leap.
He moved his face closer.
‘A few words from you would be the best Christmas present ever.’
The man moaned once more.
Dominique ran a hand through X Midi’s hair.
‘Stay calm, my friend, I’m here to listen. I made a promise, and I’ll keep it. Whatever you say is between the two of us. Understood?’
The man blinked once.
Dominique felt a rush of excitement.
‘You know I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. I’ve got something for you.’
He went over to the wardrobe and took out a cardboard tube. He pulled out the poster inside and showed it to X Midi.
‘Look, this is an alphabet chart. Vowels on the top line and consonants underneath. They’re arranged according to the frequency of their use. You know ‘e’ is the most used letter in French? And for consonants, ‘s’.’
The man stared at the poster with interest.
‘See where we’re going, here?’
The man gave no reaction.
‘I’ll explain. You’re going to make words. First I’ll say “vowel” and if the first letter of your word is a vowel, you’ll blink once. If not, you do nothing. See, I’m making life easy for you. Then, I’ll pronounce each letter, one after the other, very slowly, you’ll have plenty of time. I’ll wait. When I get to the letter you need, you blink once. Okay?’
No reaction.
‘Okay, Eddy? Shall we give it a go?’
The man continued to examine the alphabet chart.
Dominique didn’t want to pressure him. He rolled the poster back up and pushed it into the cardboard tube.
‘There it is, my friend. The day you want to tell me something, I’ll get the tube out. You can turn off the TV, to let me know. Now I need to go. I have other friends waiting for their treatments. I’ll be back in a while.’
He turned on his heels and headed for the door. He was stepping out into the corridor when the TV went black.
Dominique walked back into the room.
‘Did you turn it off? You want to tell me something?’
The man closed his eyes.
‘Fine, so I’ll get the chart?’
The man stared at him.
Dominique took out the alphabet, moving slowly and deliberately. He didn’t want to risk making the man change his mind.
He let X Midi examine the chart for a few minutes before asking his first question.
‘Vowel?’
The man showed no response.
‘So it’s a consonant?’
He began reciting the series of consonants.
‘S? T? N? R? L? D? C? P? M?’
The man closed his eyes.
Dominique felt the adrenaline rush flooding his arms and legs.
‘M? That’s the first letter of your word?’
The man blinked.
Dominique was jubilant.
‘Fantastic! Amazing! Edouard, you’re a genius! M? M! Mmwah!’
He blew X Midi an extravagant kiss.
The man carried on staring at the poster, as if the exercise demanded his total concentration.
‘Okay, let’s carry on. If I think I’ve found the word, I’ll make suggestions, that way you won’t have to keep on to the last letter.’
He pointed a finger at the top line.
‘Vowel?’
Yes.
‘E? A?’
The man blinked.
‘A? That’s the second letter? A like amour? MA? That’s the beginning of your word?’
The man signalled that it was. His eyes filled with tears.
‘We carry on with the same word?’
Yes.
‘Vowel?’
Yes.
‘E? A? I?’
Yes.
‘I? MAI?’
MAI was correct.
‘Vowel?’
No reaction.
‘S? T? N?’
Yes.
‘MAIN?’
Yes.
‘Maintenant?’
No reaction.
‘Main? Hand? That’s your first word?’
Yes.
‘Shall we continue?’
No reaction.
‘That’s what you want to tell me? Hand?’
The man blinked once and looked away, leaving Dominique perplexed.
Hand.
55: FAR BACK
Perhaps I’ll get out of this prison. I need time. I can think clearly. I know what’s going on around me. I know what a hand is. I can picture a hand. I know mine are there, I can feel them again.
If I could speak, I could pronounce the word, but spelling it out is a problem. It’s been so long since I read or wrote anything.
All this takes me so far back.
56: LAST ON THE LIST
Stern was convinced Paul McDonald’s replacement had been a last-minute thing. The drummer was an energetic man, in robust health. Given what was at stake, he must have dropped out at the very last minute. It must have come as a surprise.
The session’s organisers would have been forced to look for a replacement drummer. The London columnist Nick Kohn had confirmed that many groups played ‘residencies’ in Berlin. The challenge would be to find one that had recently quit, or a drummer available to step into McDonald’s shoes.
For Stern, it meant listing every drummer who had played in West Berlin during the month of March: no small challenge. He gave up on the idea and asked himself what he would have done, in the organisers’ place.
Logically, he would have called round the night clubs where the groups played.
A feasible enough lead.
He drew up a list of clubs, bars, night clubs and other Berlin haunts likely to have hired musicians to provide evening entertainment.
But the task proved unexpectedly tough. West Berlin numbered one hundred and thirty-nine places hiring musicians on a regular or permanent basis. Limiting the search to rock groups wouldn’t help – any jazz or variety drummer would have been up to the job, too.
Stern gave his editor-in-chief a detailed progress report on the investigation, and suggested hiring a German-speaking temp reporter to carry out the search.
His request was refused. The editor-in-chief ordered him to drop the story: no one was interested.
Stern acted on his chief’s instructions. He did not put up a fight.
That evening he contacted his friend George Marshall, the vice-chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast, and asked him to find a German-speaking student prepared to earn a bit of pocket money by making a few telephone calls between classes.
A few days later, he was contacted by Manfred Hammer, a student from Karlsruhe, willing and able to help. Stern had prepared the work, drawing up an alphabetical list of bars and night clubs. He installed the
student in his own flat, and said he would pay him out of his own pocket.
Hammer’s mission was to contact the manager of each venue and ask if he had received a request for a back-up drummer on the evening of March the fourteenth.
Stern was all too aware that seven months had elapsed, and there was a slim chance of success.
Hammer set to work on Thursday, November the sixteenth, around 11:00a.m.
By the end of the day, he had made over fifty calls. Most went unanswered. Some had hung up before he had time to formulate his request. The few who heard him out answered ‘no’.
Late in the afternoon the following day, just as Hammer was beginning to give up hope, he spoke to a waiter at Danny’s Club. The man remembered taking just such a call. The club’s resident group at the time were a rock outfit called The Sharks. The caller had been looking for a drummer for the evening, and offered three hundred marks.
The call had sparked controversy at the club. Given the large sum involved, the waiter had spoken to the drummer, who said he would take the gig. The other group members were willing to let him go provided he shared the money. The singer declared they would play an ‘intimate’ set that evening – no drummer: he would provide the percussion himself, on maracas and tambourine. But the club’s boss had intervened and refused point blank. The discussion turned sour, and there were heated exchanges for several minutes.
The man on the line had been furious at being made to wait so long for a refusal.
Hammer thanked the waiter and called Stern immediately to announce the good news.
Stern was delighted. He was on the right track. They would continue with the calls. He asked Hammer if he could find a friend to help out. Next day, Hammer found another student, Hilde Bachmann, a Bavarian girl from Munich.
Between November the eighteenth and the twenty-fourth, they took it in turns to make the calls. They called without a break from ten in the morning to midnight, encouraging one another and stopping only for a drink and a sandwich.
Sometimes it took more than ten calls to reach the right person. Finally, they reached seven people who remembered receiving the back-up calls, but with no further leads.
On November the twenty-fourth, around 3:00p.m., Hilde Bachmann was on the line to a man by the name of Fred Weiss, the boss of the Viktoria Bar.
One of the last on the list.
57: AN UNWITTING ROLE
The events occurred on the night of the fourth to the fifth of June, 1967, in Ramstein, near Kaiserlautern, some seven hundred kilometres south-west of Berlin.
On a normal day, it would have made the headlines of every newspaper, but at dawn on the fifth of June, Israeli Mirages attacked Egypt and destroyed the country’s air force while it was still on the ground. Half an hour later, tanks entered Sinaï. The Six-Day War had begun.
For the man in the street, this marked the beginning of World War Three. The morning papers all changed their headlines at the last minute, and the Sankt Bonifaz Massacre became a secondary news item, relegated to the inside pages.
The town of Ramstein was known as the home of the biggest American air base in Europe. As on every Sunday night, its military personnel were enjoying their last night of freedom after weekend leave. One of the most popular bars in the town centre was the Hula-Hoop, a huge dance hall with several different bars and restaurants.
Large numbers of American soldiers had gathered there that evening, together with French, British and Belgians garrisoned close by. A fair few Germans were also out, mostly locals.
At around 1:00a.m. a fight broke out.
Eyewitnesses said several assaults had been launched around the hall, at the same moment, mostly targeting the Germans. The military personnel threw themselves at the Germans all at once, as if an order had been given.
The victims were massacred with punches, kicks and broken-off bottles. The soldiers seemed to have been overcome with a kind of murderous bloodlust. Seven German civilians were killed in the space of a few minutes. After lynching these poor innocents, the American and British soldiers turned against the French and the Belgians. They began fighting amongst themselves. Blood flowed. It seemed nothing could stop the wave of violence. With no one left to attack, some of the American personnel turned on their own garrison comrades.
The military police hurried to the scene, and were attacked in their turn. Faced with a huge number of assailants, they were forced to retreat. Their aggressors pursued them through the streets. The police opened fire and killed three of the ring leaders.
Calm was restored as suddenly as the flash of violence had erupted.
Ambulances arrived. The events had taken a heavy toll. Fifteen dead and thirty wounded, some in a critical condition.
The West German authorities talked of mass hysteria.
That Sunday night, like every Sunday, was my night off. The War and the massacre were fermenting while Mary and I watched Jimi Hendrix’s set at the Saville theatre. Paul McCartney was there too. Jimi opened the show with ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, a fine tribute to the Fab Four, whose album had been released just a few days earlier.
Next day, everyone was talking about the war in Egypt. I bought a newspaper – something I never normally did. I glanced through the report of the outbreak of Arab–Israeli hostilities while drinking my coffee. I spoke good enough English, but reading still gave me a few problems. Mary translated the words I didn’t understand.
After reading the article, I turned the pages of the paper mechanically, and found the section recounting the events in Ramstein.
My heart leaped.
He was there. On one of the photographs taken immediately after the tragedy. He was there, amongst the bystanders in front of the Hula-Hoop. He seemed to be watching the ambulances driving back and forth. He was a good head taller than the rest of the crowd. I recognised his white hair, his martial appearance, his closed expression and deep-set eyes.
I should have stopped there, finished my coffee and got on with my semblance of a life but it seemed to me that behind this slaughter lay an appalling truth, in which I had played an unwitting role.
58: THE CALL OF DUTY
The discovery troubled me deeply: it boded ill. I showed the article and the picture to Mary. She shrugged her shoulder and countered that it was just a coincidence, the photograph was blurry, and my imagination was playing tricks.
Mary didn’t believe me, and I didn’t insist. I waited until she went out.
As soon as the door closed behind her, I threw some things into a bag and pocketed the money we had stashed. I had to get to Ramstein, and nothing would stop me.
I left Mary a note. I was not mistaken. It was no coincidence.
I took the bus to Heathrow. At the Lufthansa counter, I bought a ticket to Frankfurt.
I was distracted, dazed. Had I made the right decision? I felt guilty about Mary. Lost in thought, I moved through passport control and customs without a hitch.
I arrived in Frankfurt mid-afternoon. From there, I caught a train to Ramstein, and arrived at nightfall.
The sense of tragedy was palpable. The station was packed with people, but silence reigned. I saw faces stricken with grief, terrified stares; slumped, defeated figures. The events had occurred less than twenty-four hours before, and many relatives were only just arriving.
The hotels were filled with families and journalists. Dozens of people were sitting on the station hall floor, half awake, staring into the void. The families of victims sat alongside the families of the attackers. Some appeared uncomprehending, or in denial. Others showed deep sorrow.
I mixed with the crowd. I passed myself off as the brother of a wounded Belgian soldier. It suited my purpose. I felt a hypocrite, taking cover in such circumstances, but the alibi was useful to try and understand what had happened. Using my French and English, and the few words of German I had picked up, it enabled me to approach witnesses.
Each time, I repeated the same questions.
Eventually, one survivor, traumatised by the images seared on his memory, produced the fragment I dreaded but had been expecting.
Shortly before the outbreak of violence, he had seen the disc-jockey talking to a young man in civilian clothes, in the doorway of his booth. The man had handed him a round metal box, like a film reel canister. My witness couldn’t tell me anything more – he had left a few seconds later, just as the trouble broke out.
My blood froze. Propelled by some unseen force, I left the station and set out on the road to hell. I found myself outside the Hula-Hoop. I have no idea how.
Men and women stood silently collecting their thoughts outside the entrance to the club. Notes scribbled hurriedly on scraps of paper had been pinned to the door. A carpet of flowers was spreading in front of the building. A tape recorder crackled classical music. Hundreds of candles had been placed on the pavement, their flames wavering in the icy wind.
Drowning in the midst of such distress, I trembled with rage and cold. I was like a survivor after an atomic bomb-blast, wandering amongst the ruins of a city whose every corner was redolent of death.
I headed back to the station. Everywhere I went, people were talking unreservedly, trying to find the words that would help them understand and release their sorrow.
By dint of asking, I found the disc-jockey. He was the same age as me. He was sitting at a table in a bar in town, haggard and staring into space. This was the beginning of his second sleepless night. Alcohol was helping to erase the nightmare. He was surrounded by friends, each trying to help him draw breath and return to the world of the living.
I sat at his table. I told him the story about my wounded brother. He spoke a little English. He listened without listening, haunted by the scenes of the night before. He would never sleep again.
I asked no questions. We drank and talked like people united in grief.
Deep in the night, he gave me his version of events. When the fighting broke out, he had been targeted by a group of American soldiers. They were hurling things at the glass screens around his booth – bottles, glasses, chairs. He locked himself in and took refuge under the mixing desk, to escape being killed.
