When I first met her, her wedding make-up made her appear a little older, but I liked her even better now without any trace of blush or lipstick, maybe because she seemed even more vulnerable this way. I suddenly felt an overpowering desire to protect her from everyone, and from Heydrich’s people in particular. I did have the power to do it, thankfully.
“So, Frau Friedmann.” I addressed her with a smile. “How about we get rid of this file and pretend that it never existed?”
“Does it mean… that I’ll be free to go?” she asked with uncertainty and hope at the same time.
“Yes. Absolutely free, Frau Friedmann.”
“Thank you, Herr Gruppenführer,” she muttered at last, giving me such a radiant smile that I was ready to do anything just to see it again on her face.
“You’re most certainly welcome, Frau Friedmann.” I paused for a moment and then asked her the question that had been bothering me this whole time. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
She pondered her response for a moment, but then gave me a resolute reply. “No, Herr Gruppenführer. You’ve been very kind to me. Thank you.”
I got up from the table I was sitting on and offered her my hand.
“Let’s go. I’ll give you a ride home. Your husband must be worried sick about you.”
She was trying to protest weakly, afraid to be an imposition, but the truth was that I just couldn’t bring myself to let her go yet.
In the car, on our way to her house, she warmed up even more to me. I kept admiring her exquisite profile as she told me something about her theatre in response to my questions; questions that I couldn’t even recall after I asked them. She smiled and fixed my jacket over her shoulders every time she had to stick her delicate arm out to point in the direction to which we were supposed to be going. It was sending some extremely pleasurable shivers all over my skin, simply by her touching my jacket, which was so ridiculously big on her lean frame. Annalise was a tall girl, but thin enough to probably make my mother gasp in horror if she saw her. I chuckled softly to myself, wondering why I imagined her meeting my mother in the first place. My mother would love her though… she would definitely love her more than Lisl, my wife, who she couldn’t stand, to be truthful. Neither could I lately.
“Now, around the corner, and the fourth house on the left will be mine,” she chirped, pointing at the road and straightening in her seat. She had the most adorable, even though somewhat childish, gestures, I thought, not able to stop smiling at her impatience, with which she was shifting in her seat and craning her neck. “That one!”
I stopped the car in front of the house she pointed at and once again, for the last time in the evening, was presented with the warmest, most beaming smile.
“I really don’t know how to thank you, Herr Gruppenführer. You saved my life. How can I possibly ever repay you?”
“Maybe one day you’ll save mine,” I suggested jestingly.
She smiled, pressed my hand unexpectedly, and got out of the car. Halfway on the walkway leading to her house she remembered that she was still wearing my uniform jacket and ran back to the car, holding it in her outstretched hand. I jumped out and took it from her, urging her to get to the house before she caught the flu from being in her light dress on a freezing February night. Annalise turned around once again, after already knocking on the door, and waved at me. I watched her husband open the front door and grab her in the tightest embrace before rushing her inside. I lowered my eyes back to the jacket, still warm from her body, and quickly put it on to feel that warmth through my shirt. It still carried the faint scent of her perfume. I inhaled deeply, looked at the closed door of her house, and drove off, puzzled with my own behavior.
I lived in the strangest sort of perplexed haze for a few weeks after that fateful meeting, and it was no wonder that my always suspicious mistress of six months took notice.
“You know, your behavior puzzles me lately, very much!”
Charlotte’s crossed arms and offended breathing started getting on my nerves. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed her off so rudely when she let herself into my study again, without permission, but I really didn’t need her hands around my neck when I was trying to go through multiple reports from my agents in Poland.
“I told you not to disturb me when I’m working, Lotte,” I answered coldly without looking at her, and made several marks on a separate paper.
I didn’t have to see her face because I knew all her expressions too well by now. She was most certainly pouting with all the disdain she could muster on her otherwise pretty face.
“You didn’t seem to mind all the other times,” my mistress, who all of a sudden decided to act as if she was my lawfully wedded spouse, replied with contempt. “And you have never pushed me around like this before.”
I pursed my lips, ignoring her remark. She was right, though; before when she came into my study to sit on my lap I always set business aside to enjoy her shapely body, right there on the table.
Charlotte, a daughter of a coffee house owner, was an exceptional beauty, with a mane of chestnut hair and green eyes. She was very well aware of her looks and the effect she had on men. Her temperament, though, was spoiling everything. Charlotte was extremely possessive and jealous, and suffered from terrible insecurity despite her beauty. So, whenever I happened to look appreciatively at another woman, she would often have her revenge on me by openly flirting with whoever happened to be around her at that moment. I wouldn’t stand for that, of course, and would start yelling at her, then she would start yelling back at me until I stormed out of the place telling her to go to hell. She would follow me, throwing more insults my way, crying when yelling didn’t work, and accusing me of being mean to her. I would feel guilty and drive her back to my house, and in the car she would start wrapping her arms around my neck and covering my face in kisses, saying how much she loved me. These mind games of hers were only getting me angry, and as soon as we stepped inside the apartment I would throw her face down on the mail table, lift her skirt up and fuck her hard and rough, just to teach her a lesson about how to respect me in public. She didn’t seem to mind, judging by all her moaning and the fact that she not once told me to stop, but I couldn’t care less how she felt about it. After I was done I would have a shower and go straight to bed. Sometimes I was convinced that she was doing it on purpose, provoking me that is. A lot of good ‘a nice Austrian girl’, in Otto’s words, did. I was becoming more and more inclined toward switching to calm and reserved Prussians, never mind the rumors about their non-existent passion that Otto was insisted were true.
“You have changed since your last trip to Berlin, Ernst. Did you find someone there? A new woman?” Charlotte went back to her accusatory tone again.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. My new woman’s name is Reini Heydrich. A little too tall, and her nose is a little too long, but she is a blonde and the best lover I’ve ever had.”
“Ernst! Stop it with your idiotic jokes!”
“What do you want me to say?” I threw the pen on the table and turned to her. “I went for an inspection of his Gestapo and came right back. What are you accusing me of?”
Charlotte bore her eyes into me again, still frowning. “Swear that you didn’t see any women in Berlin.”
“I’m getting enough of this from my wife, Lotte,” I said irritably instead of answering her directly, and I went back to my reports. “I don’t need this from you. If you keep staging scenes of jealousy like the one you’re making now, we might as well end it all.”
“You did meet somebody,” she said in a grave voice. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for the tears that would most likely follow. “I knew it.”
“Lotte, I didn’t meet anyone. And I am trying to work here, if you don’t mind. Please, go busy yourself with something. Read a book or listen to the radio. Or better yet, go home, because I might have to stay up late again with all this paperwork.”
She stood there, by my desk, for some t
ime without moving.
“You don’t want me anymore, do you?” she asked in a trembling voice, which didn’t evoke anything but more annoyance in me.
“Not right now I don’t.”
“But you always did before…”
“Charlotte, go away!” I screamed at her, giving way to my irritation at last. She stepped away as if had I hit her, burst into tears and ran from the room. I sighed in relief after she slammed the front door closed.
The following day, when I met Otto after he had returned from the military base in Germany all upset because he didn’t get accepted to the Luftwaffe, I broke the news to him, but not before making some fun of him first.
“So what happened, they haven’t built a plane big enough for you yet?” I teased him after we both ordered beer.
He gave me a look, but surprisingly didn’t curse me out.
“They said I was too tall.”
“Why did you want to become a pilot in the first place?”
“I don’t know.” He gave me an embarrassed grin and a one shoulder shrug. “There’s just something about the planes, I guess. It’s romantic.”
“You’re making my heart melt.” I playfully pressed both hands to my chest.
Otto waved me off and seemed relieved when the bar maid appeared with our beers.
“I can’t talk to you seriously about anything,” he grumbled, blowing the foam off his mug.
“I broke up with Lotte,” I announced, surprising myself with how cheerfully it came out.
“Why would you do that? She’s gorgeous, that girl!”
“She turned into my wife.”
“They all do at some point,” he agreed with a smirk, and we toasted with our beer glasses.
“Guess who I met when I was in Berlin though.”
“Heydrich. Reichsführer. Goebbels. Dietrich? Oh no, wait, I know! It’s a trick question, right? Melita!”
“Yes, yes, no, no and no,” I replied jokingly. “And you still didn’t guess who I had in mind.”
Otto narrowed his grey eyes at me, silently going through options in his mind, before lifting both hands in the air. “I can name a lot of people, but for some reason I believe that you have someone particular in mind.”
“Yes, I do. Remember the girl from the file that you found in my table?”
“Oh, the Prussian girl!” Otto snapped his fingers.
“Yes. Only now we have to start calling her a Jewish girl.” I smiled.
“Why Jewish?”
“I met her in the Gestapo jail.”
“What on earth was she doing in the Gestapo jail?”
“Supposedly concealing her Jewish identity.”
“She’s not Jewish?!”
“Of course she’s not!” I burst out laughing. “One of her fellow dancers from the theatre, who was very envious of her recent promotion, wrote a report on her, supposedly saying that she saw her wearing a necklace with a Star of David pendant on it.”
“Who would wear something like that now?”
“No one, that’s the point. So, anyway, one of Heydrich’s agents scared the poor thing to death without even investigating anything. And meanwhile all her papers are perfectly fine, but he didn’t even bother to look through them. That’s how they work there, can you imagine? Probably half of the people, who they send to the camps, aren’t even guilty of anything, and sign the confessions only because they are terrified of their interrogators! We in Austria at least go through things thoroughly prior to bringing up charges against the person of interest.”
“So what did you do?”
“Nothing. I just spoke to her, calmed her down and then took her home.”
“You took her home?” Otto grinned, slapping my shoulder. “You dog, you!”
“Her home,” I answered, giving him a hard glare. “I drove her back to her home, back to her husband. She’s married, you remember?”
“When has that ever stopped you?”
I chuckled and drank my beer without replying.
“The war will start soon,” I said in a barely audible voice instead, so no one around but Otto could hear me.
“The war?” he asked in the same manner. “Heydrich told you?”
“Hell will freeze over before Heydrich tells me something.” I bit my lip and patted my pockets, looking for my cigarettes. “The reports I’m getting… It’s not looking too good.”
“Poland?” Otto knew right away what I was alluding to, since I always shared everything with him, even though I was breaking the law by doing so. However, I trusted him like I trusted myself, and, besides, he had proved his loyalty to me too many times.
“Yes, Poland. It looks to me that he is eyeing it.” No matter how quietly we spoke, we never pronounced the word ‘Führer’ in a public place when discussing our private matters. Otto had moved his chair right next to mine and we were almost whispering into each other’s ear now, because, being the chief of the Austrian Gestapo, I knew firsthand that one could never be too careful. I had instructed my own people to wire many public places and restaurants, so my measure of precaution was more than justified.
“What about the Munich pact then? Didn’t we agree not to make any territorial expansions after we had annexed Bohemia-Moravia? The British won’t be too happy about it.”
“I know. I don’t think he cares about their opinion anymore. Or anybody else’s for that matter. Something’s going on, Otto. They demand more and more infiltrated agents from me, and all in that area. More and more intelligence. Heydrich is very interested about the situation in Poland as well, and about our Austrian war infrastructure.”
“War infrastructure?”
“Yes. What do you think all the armament is for? All the posters with army propaganda? Even you were attracted to one of their Luftwaffe leaflets. I don’t see any other reason except we are preparing for war, my friend.”
“But if we attack Poland… England will declare war on us.”
“Most certainly.”
“Do you think we’re prepared for that?”
“For war?”
“Yes.”
“With Poland – yes. With England – I honestly don’t know, Otto. We’ve only been rearming for six years, building everything from nothing. I don’t know if it’s sufficient time. But again, I don’t have any numbers regarding our war machines. Not even Austrian armed forces anymore. They’re saying it’s not my department’s business. Everything’s been taken over by Berlin. I don’t know anything, Otto. And I’m the chief of intelligence.”
Chapter 3
Nuremberg prison, April 1946
“I’m the former chief of intelligence, Henry. I’ve always been highly observant.” I arched my brow at my blushing guard, who kept vehemently denying that he was interested in one of the typists, who he’d met in the courtroom. “Just ask the girl out next time, before someone else does.”
“No, she won’t go with me,” the young American muttered embarrassingly, taking a handcuff off my wrist. “She’s local, they don’t particularly like our lot here. You know, she’s German, and we’re… the occupiers.”
“What happened to ‘liberators’?”
“No, to all of you we’re still occupiers, I know that. She’ll never like me.”
“I once thought that a Jewish girl wouldn’t like me.”
“What?” Henry frowned and even hesitated when closing the door to my cell, waiting for an explanation. “What Jewish girl?”
“No one.” I shook my head, implying that he should disregard my words and sat on my cot. “Just invite the girl on a date, for Christ’s sake! Or I will…and women never refuse me.”
Henry snickered in response and added good-humoredly through the window of my cell door, “I will, I will! Good thing that you’re sitting here!”
“Why, you’re that afraid of the competition?”
Henry laughed again, and I lay on my cot, recalling the day, or actually a very strange evening, when a certain Jewish girl, who I was mo
re than sure would never like me, kissed me instead.
My calico cat kept trying to make herself comfortable on my lap while I was trying to make sense of the multiple reports that I had collected from my subordinates to make one big report for Reichsführer. The entire desk in my study, at my Berlin villa, was covered in stacks of papers and statistics, and I kept getting up for yet another document, much to my cat’s discontent. At last, she couldn’t take me shifting her sleepy body anymore and jumped irritably right on top of my table, giving me a heavy glare as she started to demonstratively groom her behind right on top of Himmler’s future report, clearly expressing her views on both.
I laughed involuntarily, rubbed the kitty behind her ear and took it as a sign to take a break. I went outside to enjoy my cigarette in the musky June air, still filled with smells of spring and blooming trees. I have no idea what got over me there on the front porch and why I felt such an urge to grab my jacket from the hanger in the hallway, where my housekeeper Elke had already put it for the next day, cleaned and perfectly pressed. I got into my car and drove to a small church nearby – the one that I knew was never closed, even for the night. So many times I had passed it by, on the way to my new house that I had received when taking on the position of Chief of the RSHA, but before I couldn’t make myself step through its doors. That night was the night I finally decided to walk inside, for the first time in many years.
It was more than understandable that I expected to have this experience all to myself at such a late hour, but to my big surprise I saw a woman sitting in one of the front pews, resting her blonde head on both hands which rested on the pew in front of her and either praying – in a very strange position for praying – or just staring at the crucifix; I couldn’t tell because I couldn’t see her face.
The Austrian: Book Two Page 3
