The Dark Frontier

by A. B. Decker

  “But what I find so hard, Marthe, when I look over at the city devoured by the mist is that Frank is somewhere there, swallowed even deeper, out of sight. I can see the mist, and I know he’s there, but I can’t see him. And I just can’t believe that he can go missing like that.”

  Marthe took her hand and squeezed it gently. Ellen thrilled at the first tingle of comfort she had felt in what seemed an eternity, until the sudden roar of an aircraft cruelly dashed this sense of respite before it could even take hold. She glanced up to see what she recognised as a BEA plane veering off westwards as it climbed into the sky.

  “That’s your flight to London,” said Marthe. “I’m sure you will be on that plane with Frank very soon.”

  The image of Frank pulling the door to as he left for the airport just a week ago had etched itself into Ellen’s memory. His mop of thick brown hair and those dark brown eyes peering back around the door as he went. Why had she not gone to Heathrow with him to see him off? She had imagined he would be back home in a few days. But was that sufficient reason to make the excuse that his flight was far too early for her to get up just to see him off? Ok, it might have been his suggestion, but she did not have to go along with it.

  All these thoughts were now brought to plague her by the memories that the plane evoked. She watched it veer ever further to the north. And caught the flashbacks of Frank that trailed in its wake. So vivid. Like effigies from a lost civilisation that she could touch, but knew they were no longer part of her life. A cold shiver ran through her body, and she felt quite faint.

  “Do you think we could go back down now?” Ellen asked. “I’m getting quite dizzy up here.”

  The prospect of the trek back through the dark filled her with dread. But it was nothing to the harrowing image of Frank at the door that still hovered over her conscience.

  “Of course,” said Marthe, taking Ellen by the hand. “You’ll find it better going back. Return journeys are always easier.”

  The two of them descended back down into the black interior of the tower. Marthe was right. It was easier going. But as they approached the light that marked their exit from the darkness, she let go of Ellen’s hand. Ellen stopped in her tracks. Petrified of moving an inch further. She looked at Marthe now standing in the arched doorway. The silhouette of her figure against the outside light morphed into an image of Frank. He stood there on the threshold, taunting her.

  She called out “Marthe!” in the hope it would shake the image from her mind.

  Marthe turned, took a few steps back and reached out her hand to Ellen.

  “It’s all right. You’re almost out now.”

  Holding on to the soothing warmth of this guiding hand, Ellen gingerly followed Marthe out of the tower and down the steps to the safety of ground level. The walls that now rose above them, though crumbling, gave Ellen a sense of comfort. It was a feeling reaffirmed by the surrounding trees and bushes, which seemed to have grown all the closer now – as if to protect her – on the walk back down around the outer walls. She caught the hint of smoke from a log-burning stove that told her the hamlet could not be far off. This added to her growing sense of ease, until she was startled by an almighty crack.

  Ellen screamed. And stopped in her tracks. The violence of the impact as the stone smacked against the rock just ahead of Ellen, missing her by inches, left her trembling and breathless.

  “My God!” Marthe yelled, flashing a look of shocked concern back at Ellen, then looked up at the tower that now loomed above them to see where the masonry had come from.

  “That could have killed you!”

  Ellen stood stock still. Unable to speak.

  “I did say it was dangerous,” Marthe added, “but I’ve never seen such a huge stone fall here before.”

  She took Ellen by the hand.

  “Come on. You could do with a stiff drink. The Chasseur is only a few minutes from here.”

  “Could we go straight on to the village instead, where Urs is meeting us?” Ellen asked, her voice still breathless. “I would just like to get away from here.

  “Of course,” Marthe replied. “We’re not due to meet until about three. But there’s a nice little restaurant there where we can get something to eat.”

  It was a good fifteen minutes down into the village. When they eventually arrived, Ellen’s nerves were still frayed from the falling masonry and the images of Frank still speaking to her from the back of her mind. She looked forward to sitting down with Marthe for a drink. The weekend hikers were out in force for their country walk, so the restaurant was already quite full, but they found a table in a far corner.

  “I would recommend a veal sausage in an onion sauce with rösti. And a glass of Dôle. Do you like red wine?” Marthe asked.

  Ellen nodded.

  “Then let’s make that a bottle.”

  “Santé,” Marthe added at last, raising her glass once the waitress had poured the wine. “You had quite a shock up there. This should do you good.”

  She rested a comforting hand on Ellen’s as they drank. The gladdening warmth of this gesture both enthralled and disconcerted Ellen in equal measure. A confused blurring of emotions that left her pondering their drift.

  Chapter 8

  The Hotel St. Gotthard lay in a side street close to the railway station. For an early Monday morning the central square in front of the station seemed especially lively. Frank Eigenmann preferred to avoid stations even at the best of times – but today the throng of travellers reminded him all too vividly of all the other parts of the world he might be in at that moment and of his good fortune to enjoy the safety offered by this station in particular.

  Frank had not told Achim he would be calling on him that morning. But his old friend did not seem surprised to see him. After their tense reunion, Frank was a little apprehensive. He wondered how he might be received if he turned up unannounced. But Achim seemed genuinely pleased and welcoming.

  Gertrude had taken the two baby boys to the zoo, he explained, while he sorted things out. Maybe it was this brief parole from his responsibilities that made him appear less anxious, less ill at ease. Or perhaps it was Frank’s obvious disappointment over their meeting in the restaurant that prompted him now to make a special effort on his behalf.

  “Here,” he said.

  Fishing deep into the same mysterious rucksack which he had carried with him earlier and which he now took from the wardrobe, Achim pulled out a bottle and held it enticingly up for Frank to admire.

  “Gerti hates me drinking this stuff, but whenever I’m in Alsace, I feel duty bound to buy a bottle. And since we have something to celebrate, I’m sure she won’t object, even at this hour on a Monday morning.”

  Achim leaned the rucksack against the table, took the two tumblers that stood by the washbasin and poured a measure of the liquid with slow precision into each glass. Then handed one to his old friend.

  “Here’s to us.” He tossed the drink back with infectious enthusiasm. Frank followed suit. And Achim watched his expression intently for every nuance of reaction.

  “Don’t you find it exquisite?” he asked, when Frank failed to respond. “The very best Mirabelle brandy that money can buy.”

  “Hmm” was all Frank managed in reply as he concentrated on savouring the elixir. He was impressed, but felt that Achim had misinterpreted the non-committal hum of satisfaction.

  “My dear Frank,” he said. There was a genuine edge of concern in his voice. “I do hope you didn’t get the idea that I wasn’t pleased to see you the other day, because nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, nothing’s given me so much pleasure for a very long time. But we’ve been through a lot lately. And then the exhausting journey from Berlin. Even the sight of my dear friend couldn’t possibly compete with the promise of a night’s peace and quiet in a friendly hotel bed.”

  “I never had any such impression,” Frank lyingly reassured him. “I can quite understand how difficult it must have been.”

&
nbsp; “How could you even begin to understand?” Achim replied in a tone that came across as a rebuke, but spoke of inconsolable pain. “To start with, you’re not Jewish.”

  The way he said it came almost like a slap in the face. And Frank retaliated.

  “So you think Jews have a monopoly on suffering?”

  “Today, yes. Absolutely.”

  Frank was taken aback by the conviction of his friend’s reply, but said nothing.

  “I sometimes get the feeling that we’ve come to symbolise the guilty conscience of the entire human race. All man’s basest desires. Everything that humankind is unable to come to terms with. That’s why we have to suffer.”

  He turned to the window, looked out onto the street, and appeared to lose himself in his thoughts. It was some time before Frank broke the silence.

  “You amaze me, Achim. I’ve never even thought of you as Jewish before. In fact, in the past you were not even averse to cracking the occasional antisemitic joke. And now here you are talking of ‘we’. I had no idea you felt so strongly.”

  “Nor did I, until those gangsters in government started spouting their hatred and contempt.”

  He fell into a pensive silence. And before he was able to stir himself from his thoughts, Frank went on to relate his experience in the wine tavern a few evenings earlier.

  “You know, I was sinking a large quantity of pinot gris the other night. On my own. The place was quite empty. This man comes in and sits down at the table next to mine. Unashamedly queer, probably on the pick-up, and quite obviously Jewish. For me he was the epitome of so many Jews. But you’re so utterly different. In many ways you’re totally unjewish. So why do you feel so strongly?”

  Achim smiled. It was a smile that came with a slight wince in his expression. “You see what’s happening to us my friend?”

  “Come on, Achim. Don’t start these cryptic comments.”

  He was beginning to irritate Frank. He appeared so strangely smug in a way that did not fit with the Achim he knew.

  “All right, Frank. Let me give you an example. I’ve been reading a book recently, a pseudophilosophical work by Rudolf Kassner. Maybe you know him?”

  Frank shook his head.

  “He’s a writer of essays. A thinker. A culture critic if you like. Much revered by poets. He’s published erudite writings on the Romantic poets and painters of England, like William Blake and the Pre-Raphaelites, as well as fascinating pieces on Indian idealism and the morality of music. The man is embarrassingly well-read, well-informed and articulate – a model of our civilisation. This book I’ve been reading was published a few years ago, just as the mindless masses were sweeping their Führer to power. It’s a very learned book and rambles evasively through the author’s highly abstruse theories on what he calls ‘physiognomics’ – something he’s constructed as a means of classifying the character of people, for example by the shape of the face. At one point, early in his book, he describes what he calls the ‘phallic’ face. Let me just quote what he says.”

  Achim went over to the bedside table and picked up a book lying beneath the light.

  “It’s incredible. Just listen to this,” he said and started to read: “‘Another variant of the phallic face is that of the money type (commoner amongst Jews than amongst other races), which is not to be confused with the mean type. The money type with his round, spherical, unfinished, overgrown money-face is not at all mean, or is just as wasteful as he is mean and greedy. This is a very modern face which has developed gradually with modern capitalism, the stock exchange, share prices and so on. A face without substance, like coins or bank notes are without substance…’ And so it goes on.”

  There was a quiet rage in his voice and a hint of disgust drawn on his lips as he threw the book on the bed.

  “This man is educated, a writer and intellectual, a man of culture revered by poets, playwrights and professors. A man with sensitivity and an awe-inspiring mind. And yet he writes trash like this. So corrupted is he by the zeitgeist that he’s become a mouthpiece of official dogma, disseminating lies for which he’s unwittingly helped to contrive a fashionable camouflage with an uncomfortably respectable semblance of truth about it.

  “And we, Frank, are no better,” he continued. “We’re just as corrupt in our own way. We’ve absorbed all the lies, drawn our conclusions, and – whether we realise it or not – we’ve all taken sides. It’s inevitable, I suppose.”

  “You’re quite wrong, Achim,” Frank said, when he finally found a sufficient pause to intervene. “I’ve definitely not taken sides. And I’m not the only one, I’m sure.”

  Achim slowly poured himself another Mirabelle brandy, without looking to see whether his old friend was in need of one.

  “Then these are sad bloody days for humanity,” he muttered, “because it’s about time you did. There are moments in life, Götz, when you can’t just sit on the fence, but have to decide. There are things about which you can never be in two minds.”

  He tossed the drink down his throat, leaned his head on the back of the chair, and stared into space.

  Achim’s words stung and left him smarting all the more by the calculated use of Frank’s given name. A name that Frank so loathed. He knew Achim was right. In the uncomfortable silence that ensued, Mirabelle brandy was the only remedy to paper over the cracks they opened up in his conscience. He stood up and walked over to the table, where the half-empty bottle stood. He refilled both glasses. Turning to hand a glass to Achim, he knocked the rucksack that was leaning against the table leg. It gave a thud as it hit the floor.

  Frank held out the glass for Achim.

  “What else have you got in there?” he asked, nodding at the rucksack. “Apart from Mirabelle brandy?”

  “I was sixteen when my uncle Max first introduced me to the stuff,” Achim said, ignoring his friend’s question. There was a mild sigh in his voice, which Frank was unable to identify. “It was the first real summer after the Great War. I’d been sent off to stay with my uncle in Alsace. An amazing character. One of life’s survivors – you had to be, living in Alsace in those days. He had a gammy leg. I was never told why. There were many things about Uncle Max we didn’t talk about. But that leg probably saved his life. He would certainly never have volunteered for service, and he would have refused to be conscripted. Not that he was a pacifist. He was just unable to take sides. He had a lot in common with you, Frank.”

  Achim smiled as he savoured the brandy.

  “Actually,” Achim continued, “he had very little in common with you. But in that one respect, the way you refuse to take sides, you remind me very much of Uncle Max. In every other detail, he was not like anyone else I’ve ever known.

  “He lived on the edge of a small town in a region near here called the Sundgau, where he eked out a sparse living as a sculptor. You’d be surprised what a fertile breeding ground it is here for sculptors. Did you know that the creator of New York’s Statue of Liberty was from this region and that one of his other monuments stands just around the corner from this hotel? Of course, poor old Uncle Max didn’t make it to such dizzy heights. But perhaps I loved him all the more for his failures as a sculptor. It just added to his charisma. Certainly, the monolithic shapes that stood sentry in his atelier nurtured an insatiable fascination. Of course, nobody at war is interested in art anyway. By all accounts he suffered unimaginable hardship, until circumstances moulded him into such a master of survival that, by the end of the war, he had become one of his town’s wealthiest citizens.

  “It had apparently been an open secret that he was involved in smuggling during the war, but most people turned an indulgent blind eye to it. After all, they enjoyed the benefits of what he was able to bring across the border with him from Switzerland. And those who felt unable to ignore his illegal activities were simply too dull to catch him at it. Perhaps if they had realised at the time what a fortune he was amassing, the silent majority would have been less indulgent, because when the war ended and it even
tually emerged just how affluent he had become, there was a lot of resentment and envy. Even as an insensitive sixteen-year-old I could feel it in the village when I visited him. Of course, this only heightened my fascination for him. And when he let me into the tales of his smuggling exploits, and even took me with him one weekend on a nostalgic tour of all the crossing points along the frontier, the spell was complete.”

  “Is this why you picked out that place to meet the other day?” Frank asked.

  “Absolutely. The frontier there is a rabbit warren of easy access routes. Almost invisible. And served by a little railway that carries you straight to the anonymous heart of this city. It seemed perfect.”

  “Why all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, Achim? Why this need for anonymity?”

  He looked across at Frank with an intensity that hinted almost at a trace of animosity.

  “I can’t afford the mistake of being too honest. Otherwise I’d run the risk of being kicked back across the border. And the family with me.” He poured another drink. “I came down a few months ago, you know. Before I got your letter. But the Basel police refused me entry. I don’t know why. Was never given any explanation. Someone suggested that they’d probably used up their annual quota for Jews and couldn’t risk letting any more in for fear of stoking antisemitism. Strange people the Swiss. They like to stay aloof, but they sometimes seem a little too keen on enabling our own gangsters in government.”

  Achim sipped from his Mirabelle brandy as he contemplated this story. Then added:

  “So, I just felt this back door would be safer. And our crossing point is in a different canton, too, so if there had been any checks there, they wouldn’t have had any record of the Basel police rejecting me. I learned a lot from Uncle Max. Or maybe it’s just in the blood.”

  At that moment, the phone by the bedside rang. Achim looked nervously at his watch. Then picked up the receiver. The conversation was short and almost monosyllabic. When he put down the receiver as nervously as he had picked it up, Frank’s curiosity was suitably primed. But it was not about to be satisfied.