The Dark Frontier

by A. B. Decker

  It occurred to him at that moment that he had never actually seen Patricia wearing earrings. He wondered what special occasions she reserved them for. Were they perhaps another part of her life that was set aside for Breitner?

  He watched spellbound by the sight of her beginning to surface, the way she extended first her left arm and then the left leg from under the sheets, as if instinctively testing the air before she woke. Enthralled by the unfolding splendour of her stirring, he instantly set aside any thoughts or feelings about Breitner. And by the time she was fully awake, the picture of her smile on the pillow had not only put to flight any memory of the bully from Berlin. It ensured also that he had completely forgotten the intrusion of the brief, but disturbing dream of church bells, that familiar perfume and the blonde curls on the pillow. They had lost any meaning they might have had for him.

  But disappointment soon set in when Patricia – now fully awake – announced that she had lectures to attend that morning. And brought home to Frank that, before his day with her had even started, it was already practically at an end.

  Before he left, however, she promised to get a second key to her flat made that afternoon and to drop it by at his hotel. So he would get to see her again that day. A promise that imbued him now with a sense of ambition and allowed him to take the rest of the day in his stride. More easily than any other day he could remember. Patricia had given him a purpose, however vague in its definition.

  When he got back to his hotel room later in the day, he found this purpose had already acquired a certain cutting edge.

  Chapter 13

  The suitcase lay on the bed, looking harmless but heavy. It would probably have been cumbersome enough to carry even without its contents. But when Frank opened it up to find all the bundles of literature that his friend wanted him to hump across Germany, it was plain that his journey was not going to be easy. It was a large leather case, and it was crammed full of the little handbooks on chess that Achim had shown him, together with some small pocketbook collections of Grimm’s fairy tales. It occurred to him that the tram would not be the most convenient means of transport for the laden beast he was about to become. So he ordered a taxi to get him to the station.

  It was a good feeling to check out of the hotel that had been his home for so long. It had become a dispiriting place to live in, especially in the last three weeks or so, when his privacy had been so rudely and so regularly interrupted – right down to the unannounced appearance of this suitcase. He wondered how Achim had managed to get into his room in the first place. And why he had not waited. Was it perhaps Silverstone who had put it there, he asked himself. But however it had come to be there, it told him one thing: the space he moved in today really had no borders to defend him against life’s invasions.

  Sadly, Patricia proved not so indiscreet in delivering the key she had made to her flat, but had simply left it in an envelope at reception with a message inside: ‘Bon voyage’.

  Had the envelope not contained the key to her flat, he would have instantly seen this message as the final brush-off. Instead it left him wondering why she could not find the time to deliver it in person. Recalling now the sound of the man called Lutz knocking on her door the night before made him wonder whether perhaps she had another appointment with Breitner.

  Accompanied by the disappointment of not seeing Patricia again before he left, all these thoughts rode with Frank on the short taxi ride over the river to the city’s German station. This disturbing oddity of German property on Swiss soil was where travellers came face to face each day with the chilling evidence which proved to him that his obsessive thoughts about the bully from Berlin were not the meanderings of a paranoid schizophrenic.

  The station tower rose above this German station like a finger up the arse of Switzerland, mocking the quiet, disinterested streets of Frank’s refuge as it let the swastika billow from its large, stubby digit. It came as a shock every time he saw that frightening symbol of hatred flying over Swiss soil. And it reminded him now of Breitner’s words when he tried to impress on Frank that the arm of the Third Reich was more than long enough to reach across the border as and when it pleased. There really was no safe refuge from its arrogance.

  In the station itself, on the far side of the booking hall, the uniforms and the ominous leather coats and wide-brimmed hats at the customs barrier underlined the menace with fearsome effect. A menace that was enhanced all the more for Frank by the knowledge that the local Swiss branch of the NSDAP had their offices in this station building.

  Tucking away the threat as comfortably as he could, he walked over to the ticket office to buy a first-class return to Cologne. With his back to the customs barrier, he felt wide open to everything he had been running from these past months. The feeling chilled him to the bone. After taking his ticket, he remained at the counter for some time, bracing himself to pick up the suitcase and turn with composure towards that guarded gateway to purgatory. He had nothing to fear, he kept telling himself, so why act so guilty?

  When he reached the barrier and handed over his passport at immigration, it was taken from him with officious brusqueness and examined in painstaking detail.

  “You have been living in Switzerland for almost three months.”

  The observation came without so much as a glance from the immigration officer. He might have been talking to himself. But it was hard to argue with the truth of the statement.

  “Why?” he asked. “What do you have against your Fatherland?”

  “On the contrary. I love my country,” Frank replied. “If I had something against it, I wouldn’t feel the need to return.”

  The man disappeared into an office with his passport, giving Frank the impression he was less than satisfied with this half-hearted declaration of patriotism. The struggle to retain his composure was becoming desperate. And the sweat was starting to gather. But he was keenly conscious of the need to keep calm. He was aware of the wide-brimmed hats and leather coats watching everyone who passed through the gate. And he sensed their prying eyes wander down to his suitcase. He tried to throw a casual look in their direction. Their eyes met. The looks that pierced Frank with a force that made his stomach churn appeared to be saying: ‘Frank Eigenmann, your number’s up’, and he had to keep telling himself not to be so foolish, that he had nothing to fear – he was an innocent traveller with nothing more incriminating than a suitcase full of Grimm’s fairy tales that he was delivering to a bookseller friend in Cologne.

  The waiting seemed interminable. To his relief, the two Gestapo men turned their attention to another target of interest: a younger, more shabbily dressed traveller with rucksack, who had just arrived at the gate further back down the line. At that same moment, the immigration officer returned with his passport, thrust it into his hand and wished him “Gute Reise”. It did not have quite the same appeal as Patricia’s ‘Bon voyage’, but it was no less welcome. Indeed, he found it hard to conceal his sense of relief, and his expression of thanks was perhaps a little too effusive. But he was through. And it struck him as he walked through the gate that anyone seriously considering this as a route for smuggling propaganda into the country must need his head examined. He was thankful that this was a dummy run.

  The real advantage of travelling first class, Frank told himself, was that you can usually find a compartment to yourself. And this train was no exception. At one point, a shabby figure in a cloth cap appeared in the doorway and gave him a curious look, as though he wanted to join Frank. He recognised the man at once as the target of interest behind him who had aroused the attention of the Gestapo. But the familiarity went deeper, when he realised this was the man who had followed him and Patricia after their meeting at the museum. Frank’s heart sank. But the man passed. He did not appear the type who would travel in comfort.

  The luxury of travelling first class was more than matched by the sense of being able to draw breath again after the last few weeks of harassment. He smiled at the irony that the city
of light – his refuge from darkness and oppression – had become such a troubling place to live that he should find comfort on a train ride through the very heart of that darkness he had been seeking to escape. And he began to ponder the nature of this journey.

  His funk hole in Switzerland had become a snake pit, which he had only chosen to leave with a view to getting back as quickly as possible. And he was already forging plans, imagining life within the four walls of Patricia’s flat as he awaited her return. He was looking forward to introducing her to Achim when she got back. Although his old friend had turned away from his vocation as an artist, Frank was certain he would approve of her and appreciate her impressive knowledge of art.

  But why was he even taking this journey. Was it to help Achim? Or was it to salve his own conscience? For he knew that deep down Achim was right, that sweet dreams belong to the luxury of a peaceful night’s sleep. That when that luxury is not on offer, there comes a time when you have to take sides.

  Then there was the question of his mother, the ostensible motive for his journey. But she was surely not the true reason for his going to Cologne? He disliked the woman almost as much as she resented him. She had never completely forgiven him for being a boy. She rarely missed an opportunity to remind him of her regret that he was not a girl, someone who would be a real companion for her during his father’s frequent absences. As an engineer of some renown, his father would often spend months at a time in India, Persia or some other distant part of the world.

  Bitter were the memories of his early childhood, when he was not yet independent enough to resist the pressures of his mother, who would invariably dress him up as a girl. She would even take him out for walks in the neighbourhood and pretend to all the world that he was her little niece come to stay. He still remembered those occasions with vivid embarrassment. Fortunately, she was sufficiently in awe of his father to allow him a respite from her fantasies whenever he was home. As Frank grew older, it gradually dawned on him that his mother had a serious psychological problem, and he became more tolerant of her on the surface. But by then the damage had been done, and his antipathy was indelibly etched into their relationship.

  So the trip to Cologne did not promise to be a pleasant occasion. And it was hard to imagine that his mother might be an important motivation behind this journey. Yet, when all was said and done, it was still a mother/child relationship, so a sense of guilt inevitably stalked his thoughts. And perhaps hers too, he told himself, if she was not already too senile for moral reflection.

  Whichever way he turned, it seemed that bad conscience was the crucial agency driving him on this journey, that Patricia was nothing more than the spice to camouflage its flavour. The atmosphere in the carriage was beginning to oppress him.

  When the train rolled into Freiburg, he opened a window. He was pleased to see that more people were leaving the train here than were getting on, so he felt confident that his first-class isolation would remain secure at least until Karlsruhe. But when he turned his attention up the platform in the other direction, he could not fail to notice – leaning from the carriage just a few windows removed from him – the pockmarked face of the man in the cloth cap. Frank had the uncomfortable impression that the man was watching him.

  This feeling lingered with him all the way to Karlsruhe and beyond. He began to wish he had brought more than the daily newspaper to distract him from his unsettling thoughts. Then it occurred to him that he had a suitcase full of literature with him, however dull, so he opened up his baggage. He opted for a refresher course in chess rather than a fairy tale, and leaned back in his seat with one of Achim’s booklets. As he leafed through it, he was instantly put in mind of what Patricia had told him, when she said he was not inquisitive about the things that really matter. Those words had stung him far more than she had intended, because they were even closer to the truth than she suspected. Certainly, if he had been more inquisitive, he would have given these booklets more than a cursory glance and seen them at once for what they really were – not the primers on chess that they professed to be. No kings, queens or bishops here. Only pawns. From the very first page they preached unashamed, hard-selling, communist propaganda. Slogans of Bolshevist extremism for the working man.

  He took a copy of Grimm’s fairy tales from the suitcase. And found the story was the same. The same message, the same words. The cruelty of childhood fantasies replaced by the tyranny of collectivist adult dreams.

  Was this what Achim meant when he said he had been moving in mixed company? That he had joined the red side of the political spectrum? Had life in Berlin driven him so far as to abandon his dignity? Frank asked himself. The thought appalled him, but far worse was the realisation that he had been so deceived and used by his old friend. A dummy run, he had said. Well, the only dummy was me, Frank told himself. Like Patricia, Achim knew that he was not inquisitive about the things that really matter. And he had exploited that to the full. He even sowed the seed in Frank’s mind that he should visit his mother. Presumably, this whole absurd trip he was making had been planned by him and his cronies back in Berlin before he had even left.

  The disappointment and anger that seethed in his head blinded him to the full implications of the situation he was in. But one thing was clear: he was not going to be used by Bolshevists fighting to replace one kind of oppression with another. If these were the only sides on offer, he would prefer to stay on the fence.

  What was less clear to him was the immediate danger he was in, put there by his own naivety. It was not until the train began slowing down on its approach into Mannheim that it dawned on him how urgently he needed to act. He could be stopped and searched at any time on this journey, and almost had been before even getting on the train. Of course, he realised this when he agreed to accept the suitcase. What he had not realised was the true nature of the luggage he would be carrying – and that it might be exchanged anywhere along the line for a ticket to Dachau, if he was lucky.

  He returned the books to the suitcase and lowered the window of his compartment. Already the station of Mannheim was looming down the line like a huge mouth slowly opening to swallow a tasty morsel. He saw two options: either move to another part of the train and leave the suitcase here or break his journey at Mannheim and leave the suitcase to travel on alone. He was certainly in no doubt that Achim’s betrayal of their friendship deserved no more than this. And since the latter alternative seemed the less risky, he decided to get out.

  Relief. Disappointment. Anger. Fear. All these emotions carried him along the platform. And when he looked back anxiously at the train before merging with the throng, he saw at the window of the compartment he had just vacated a familiar face.

  It was the cloth-capped man who had been watching his every move. As ever. Only now he was watching from an intimate recess of his own most recent history – with a direct line to his conscience.

  Frank did not let his gaze linger too long in this direction, but he had the impression that the man was reaching for the suitcase as if about to open it. And at that moment he could not escape the feeling that he had made a fatal error.

  The thought that this man might be an informer in the pay of the Gestapo pursued him relentlessly into the passageway that led under the railway lines. His mind began feverishly to look for a way out of this trap he seemed to have laid for himself. It was no use leaving the station, since he had a ticket all the way to Cologne and would only draw attention to himself if he was checked at the gate.

  He found an inconspicuous vantage point from which he could observe activities on the platform and look out for signs that anyone might have been alerted about the abandoned suitcase. The minutes dragged endlessly by as people passed through the gateway out of the station to the arms of their friends or family – or simply to the welcoming embrace of freedom from the kind of anxiety he was compelled to endure. How he envied every one of those travellers. What he would have given to leave his secret behind on this station and pass through
that barrier as easily as they, without let or hindrance.

  His own train had already long since continued on its journey north, and he had seen no signs of menacing suspicion apart from those to which the last few years in the Third Reich had inured him. Slowly the possibility crept up on him that the man in the train may be a fellow traveller in the truest sense of the word – and that, when he found the suitcase, probably took it with him to distribute among his own people. The cloth-capped stranger would doubtless be grateful for the find.

  As this more comfortable scenario began to take root, he started to breathe more easily. Could he perhaps pass unhindered after all? Frank asked himself.

  The next train to Cologne did not leave for a good two hours. Since it was time for lunch, he therefore found a table in a dark, sequestered corner of the station buffet. The palpitations of his earlier panic still lingered as he took his seat. He eyed every diner with suspicion. He was still far from comfortable, but fear was in abeyance. And it gave way gradually to the anger and disappointment he still felt towards Achim. These feelings kept Frank company for the rest of that day, feeding his thoughts throughout the onward journey.

  When eventually he arrived in Cologne, he booked into a hotel close to the station. He needed a night’s rest before he could summon anything approaching enthusiasm to see his mother. And once he had done so, it was a strange melancholy that he carried with him along the avenue to his mother’s house.

  The smart row of early Wilhelminian residences that lined the street mocked his coming with their grand, standoffish elegance. The scene was punctuated here and there by the garish patterns of the swastika fluttering from some of the grander houses. He shivered at the sight, which only served to underline the cold disquiet of the nostalgia he was beginning to feel. While it was not the street he had grown up in, the architecture of the buildings and their opulent gardens were very similar to where he used to play, the trees he used to climb. It brought back memories of the friends he used to call on. One he remembered in particular was Volker Schmidt. He was a year older than Frank, and very bright.