The Night of the Generals

by Hans Hellmut Kirst

  Having completed his chores, Hartmann stepped inside the cathedral. He soon caught sight of Tanz standing in front of the Travaux des Mois, scenes from daily life in the thirteenth century. He was evidently examining them with care, but whether or not with interest it was impossible to tell.

  Hartmann found it moving to see a twentieth-century warrior standing entranced before an immortal work of art, trying to forget the horrors that dominated his own daily life. He felt a thrill of elation at the thought that he was privileged to be the man’s guide, but his elation vanished when it suddenly occurred to him that he had forgotten to clean the ash-tray in the back of the car, and he hurried off to remedy his oversight.

  An hour and twenty minutes later General Tanz emerged. He strode up to Hartmann and the Bentley as though he were seeing both for the first time, then halted. After a pause of five seconds he began to circle the car. He made only one tour, but his eyes missed nothing. “The ash-tray,” he said.

  Hartmann unclipped it and displayed its gleaming interior. General Tanz nodded. Then he spurned up a corner of the floor-mat with his toe, exposing the carpet beneath. It, too, was clean.

  “Your hands,” said Tanz.

  Hartmann peeled off the porter’s gloves and held his hands out. They passed muster.

  “Break for lunch,” said Tanz, adding: “I may inspect the engine afterwards.”

  Hartmann drove the bare two hundred yards to the Restaurant Quasimodo, whose speciality was canard à l’orange served with champagne. While Tanz was lunching there, Hartmann polished the engine block and consumed a cold chicken sandwich washed down with mineral water. He used up two rags and a wad of cotton waste during his lunch break.

  Shortly after two o’clock Tanz reappeared. He seemed to have dined well and wined still better. There was even a suspicion of a smile hovering about his lips.

  “‘Open the bonnet,” he said.

  Hartmann did so. The General bent forward slightly, withdrew a snowy white handkerchief from the left-hand breast pocket of his pearl-grey suit and rubbed it against a section of casing in the region of the distributor head. It failed to retain its dazzling whiteness.

  “I dislike soiling my handkerchiefs with filth which any subordinates have failed to remove,” stated General Tanz. “This is your first warning. I advise you not to merit a second. What is next on our programme?”

  “The Impressionists, General.”

  “Right.” Tanz ensconced himself in the back of the Bentley with manifest satisfaction. “Kindly note the following: I do not wish to be addressed as ‘General’ in the presence of a third party during our excursion. While it lasts we are off duty. Remember that at all times.”

  Hartmann drove to the Place de la Concorde and drew up immediately outside the strangely named pavilion, separated from the Louvre proper by the Jardin des Tuileries, which is the home of the Impressionists. The Jeu de Paume, Hartmann announced with barely disguised enthusiasm, housed nearly all the major contributions made by France to the world of painting during the past hundred years, including works by Monet, Manet and >Cézanne, van Gogh, Renoir and Gauguin, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Rousseau.

  Tanz stood before each painting in turn and called upon Hartmann to interpret it. Hartmann did his best to comply, carefully moderating his genuine enthusiasm for the subject. He spoke in subdued tones of van Gogh’s explosive strength, Renoir’s luminous colours, Cézanne’s ability to capture natural forces on canvas. Tanz listened attentively. He even repeated one or two pieces of information in an undertone, presumably because he felt them to be important, e.g. “Degas, Edgar, Woman combing her Hair, pastel, 80 x 57 cm., circa 1880-5, signed.”

  . The General inspected picture after picture as though each one posed some arithmetical problem which he had to solve. He seemed to allocate his time with care, never spending more than a specific number of seconds before each picture and never favouring one at the expense of another. He might have been inspecting a ceremonial parade. Hartmann followed at his heels, poring over his catalogue and murmuring names, numbers and dates.

  Tanz’s measured progress continued until he came to van Gogh’s Self-portrait, 1889, oils, 65 x 54 cm., sometimes known as “Vincent in the Flames.” The description in the catalogue read: “… Taut to breaking-point, it testifies to van Gogh’s struggle to master his inward turmoil… An expression of supreme equilibrium on the brink of the abyss.”

  Hartmann limited himself to the bare title and reference number, thinking that there would be no time for more. Mechanically, he started to move on to the next picture, but General Tanz lingered in front of “Vincent in the Flames” longer than usual. He stared at the picture, or rather, he stared straight ahead and consequently—since it hung at eye level—at the picture.

  Hartmann approached with due caution. Suddenly, he saw the General’s right arm begin to twitch convulsively. His hand, twisted into a claw, groped its way upwards and clutched his forehead in a vicelike grip. His body, usually as erect as a ferro-concrete tower, tottered and threatened to collapse.

  Hartmann rushed forward and grasped the General’s left arm. Simultaneously, he felt the muscular flesh beneath his fingers grow taut as steel cable. Tanz’s arm jerked one way and then the other, throwing him off balance. Hartmann staggered back, his childlike eyes filled with astonished incomprehension.

  Tanz turned to face him, looking as craggy and inaccessible as he had ever done. “How dare you lay hands on me?” he asked softly, his eyes as cold as a snake’s.

  “Excuse me, General, I thought…”

  “Never do that again.”

  Tanz spun on his heel and made for the next picture. Hartmann followed him. His mind was a whirl, but he managed to find his place in the catalogue again.

  Tanz strode on ahead as though his moment of weakness had never been, passing from picture to picture with clockwork regularity. He broke his rhythm only once, and that was when he came to Renoir’s Bathers, that colossal, intoxicating symphony in rosy flesh-tones. This he passed by with scarcely a glance, the back of his neck even stiffer than usual.

  Finally, the General chose a sheaf of post-cards from the counter in the entrance hall. He was extraordinarily methodical about it, displaying not the slightest preference for any one painter but apparently bent on achieving as comprehensive a selection as possible. Telling Hartmann to pay for the cards, he tucked them carefully into an envelope.

  Their next port of call was Versailles. Tanz stalked through the palace with an unheeding and almost contemptuous air, evidently repelled by the extravagant splendour which met his eye at every turn. The gardens, on the other hand, he surveyed with a certain admiration, presumably because their decorative symmetry recalled the excellent staff work which must have gone into their design. As for the great steps, he traversed them once in either direction with slow, possessive strides.

  At seven o’clock the first day’s sightseeing tour ended and Hartmann drove the Bentley back to the Hotel Excelsior. He jumped out and opened the door.

  “A satisfactory day,” said Tanz—which was probably high praise. “Call Colonel Sandauer in half an hour for further instructions. Meanwhile, see to the car.”

  He disappeared into the hotel and Hartmann drove round the corner to a garage which catered for Wehrmacht personnel. While cleaning the Bentley he came upon the General’s briefcase. He opened it and looked inside.

  Two cigarette packets, each of which had contained twenty-four cigarettes, were empty. So was the cognac bottle.

  They met in one of the private rooms on the first floor. The restaurant on the Quai des Grands Augustins was celebrated, and not only for its high prices. Its poulet docteur was second to none and the same could be said of its crêpes Mona.

  “Who’s going to foot the bill?” asked Lieutenant-Colonel Grau.

  “You’re in Paris,” Prévert replied in his absinthe voice. “Consider yourself my guest, at least on this occasion.”

  They began their meal with lob
ster accompanied by a Chablis. Prévert had the honour—he used the word without irony—to know the head chef, and this exercised an effect not only on the bill but on the food itself. Prévert and his guests were assured of the best that kitchen and cellar could produce.

  Although Grau and Prévert were meeting on neutral territory, their encounter had been preceded by an amusing episode. Once time and place had been agreed, each had sent a plain-clothes man along in advance to search the room for concealed microphones. The two agents bumped into each other, raised their eyebrows and decided that if both sides feared the same thing neither had any grounds for apprehension.

  “Don’t you trust me?” Grau asked amiably.

  “I’m just careful, like you.” Prévert dissected his lobster with artistry. “And in times like these one can’t be careful enough. To be frank, Colonel, I can’t afford to have any conversations overheard even by my own men.”

  “Nor can I,” said Grau.

  He looked at the large mirror, bordered by fragile old damask curtains, which almost entirely covered the far end of the room. It was one of those mirrors which bore a jumble of numbers and initials scratched into the glass, presumably left there over the course of the years by girls who had used their diamond rings to engrave a record of their gay nights out. In the old days the salons particuliers of the establishment had always been reserved for lovers, but the matters now under discussion demanded equal privacy.

  “Well, can you deliver?” inquired Grau.

  Prévert nodded, seemingly at his Chablis. “Two generals, a colonel and a whole host of lesser fry.”

  “Is Kahlenberge included?”

  Prévert nodded again, his expression morose. He was pained that an exquisite dinner should be abused by the introduction of subjects more suitable to the coffee stage, but Grau persisted.

  “His crime?”

  “What you would call high treason.”

  “Only that? I’m disappointed. Haven’t you found anything out of the usual run—a nice little murder, for instance?”

  “Well,” said Prévert, not certain what Grau was driving at, “perhaps high treason with murder in mind—or at least complicity in murder. Would that suit you better?”

  Grau wrinkled his brow, picked up his glass and drained it almost hurriedly. “Have you got the requisite details with you?”

  Prévert nodded once more like a salesman granting a favoured client’s special request. Then he rang for the next course. The head chef had recommended canard Colette served with a Château-Laffitte 1908, and to the friends of his kitchen such recommendations carried the force of law. Prévert sniffed his burgundy with an expression of bliss.

  But Grau was not to be put off. As soon as the waiter had retired he again turned to the subject of documentary evidence.

  “As I told you, I have it with me.” Prévert forked up a morsel of duck and conveyed it reverently to his mouth. “What about my list?”

  “It’s acceptable. I’ve already made the necessary arrangements.” He rang for the waiter, an aged >individual with the dignified mien of an elder statesman, and asked him to send up a Herr Engel, who was dining downstairs in the main restaurant.

  Engel appeared almost at once, radiating his customary good-humour. There was something infectious about his beaming smile.

  “Deliver the first three names on the list to the appointed place at the pre-arranged time,” Grau told him.

  “It shall be done.” Engel grinned and vanished through the curtains, his cheeks puffed out as though he were whistling an imaginary tune.

  Prévert tore his gaze away from the succulent skin of his duck, pale brown like the leaves of a tulip-tree after the first frost of autumn, and regarded Grau with a worried frown. “I only hope there’s no misunderstanding. My information is reliable and I’ll turn it over to you immediately, but what if you can’t use it—if you don’t want to use it?”

  Grau, too, laid down his knife and fork. “Why do you think that’s likely?”

  “Because you aren’t a Nazi.” Prévert made this statement in the same matter-of-fact tone which he would have used if he had been commenting on the quality of the cuisine. “On the other hand, you seem determined to get rid of a number of senior officers. Why?”

  “Let him serve the next course,” said Grau. There was another lull in the conversation. The lights sparkled festively in the old mirror, the decrepit waiter took on the appearance of a priest performing some mystic rite, and the dark hangings which had heard so many whispered endearments and so much gay laughter in the past enclosed the two man-hunters in a little world of cosy contentment.

  Prévert drew a bundle of papers from his breast pocket. “What I have to offer you is this: a conspiracy by generals and other senior officers against Hitler. It seems fairly certain that they mean to eliminate him.”

  Grau reached for the notes and leafed through them impatiently. His eyes skimmed across the sheets one by one, taking in the gist of their contents. A dark flush of excitement rose to his cheeks.

  “A deal’s a deal,” he said finally. “I’ll hand over three of your chaps and you can do what you like with them. The same goes for me. I’ll do what I like with my three—if I do anything at all.”

  “Now let’s have some champagne,” suggested Prévert. “I had a bottle of Mumm Rosé ‘33 put on ice. I hope you don’t object?”

  The champagne was served and the two men drank to each other, draining their glasses at a gulp.

  “You know,” said Grau, “we’re as different as chalk from cheese, but I have the feeling that fundamentally we have a good deal in common.”

  “That’s quite understandable,” said Prévert, refilling their glasses. “There’s a sort of brotherhood which isn’t dependent on the accident of blood relationship and has nothing in common with the herd instinct.” He raised his glass. “I drink to the brotherhood of reasonable men.”

  “My people,” Grau declared, when the third glass of Mumm Rosé was circulating inside him like gentle rains irrigating a parched landscape, “or rather, the nation I belong to, has been fed on a diet of lies for years. It can’t tell the difference between caviare and fish-paste. And what makes things even more frightful is that this applies not only to the masses but to a substantial proportion of the people who ought to act as their conscience.”

  “Generals, for instance?”

  “They call themselves generals!” Grau exclaimed. “They pretend to be the high priests of Prussian-German tradition, but a lot of them are just miserable hypocrites who let millions of soldiers think they see Hitler as an embodiment of that tradition. They’ve turned into stooges and bootlickers.”

  “But what’s a general, when all’s said and done? There must be thousands of them. You can’t expect them all to be geniuses and heroes.”

  “No, but I don’t expect them to behave like a flock of sheep, scattering to the four winds just because a dog barks at them. Whenever one of them breaks out—Beck, say, or Hoeppner—dozens of others rush forward to take his place. It seems as though generals are more expendable than anyone else in Germany these days. They stand to attention in front of that sewer-rat, let him chew their balls off and say ‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir!’ It makes me sick to think of it.”

  Prévert busied himself with the cheese-board. He appeared to be concentrating on a ewe’s-milk cheese from south of Pau, noted for its peculiarly sharp and bitter flavour. “Tell me,” he said deliberately, “aren’t you impressed by the fact that one or two generals seem prepared to risk their necks?”

  “It’s too late.” Grau leant back in his chair wearily. “Killing Hitler now would be like assassinating a corpse. He’s on his last legs, anyway. If the army had made a stand at the outbreak of war, or three or even two years ago, it would have been a historic decision. Now, it’s just self-preservation.”

  “But you’ll help them, won’t you?” Without waiting for a reply, Prévert continued: “Whatever you do, remember one thing. There’s
precious little worth dying for in this world, but there’s a hell of a lot worth living for.”

  Lance-Corporal Hartmann put a call through to Lieutenant-Colonel Sandauer at the appointed time, hoping that General Tanz’s G.S.O.1 would be either unavailable or disinclined to take a telephone call from a humble N.C.O. His hopes were dashed. It seemed that Sandauer had nothing better to do than sit around waiting for Hartmann to ring.

  “Hartmann,” he said without any preamble, “the General is satisfied with you. You can regard that as a special commendation.”

  Sandauer’s words did not fail to have their intended effect on Hartmann. He felt a glow of pride at his achievement, though he overlooked one minor point. The appreciative remarks emanated not from Tanz but from Sandauer, and Sandauer was a military technician who knew exactly where and when a machine needed a drop of oil.

  “In addition to your duties as driver and—if I may so describe it—guide,” Sandauer went on, as though reading from a prepared statement, “General Tanz wishes you to take over the duties of his No. 1 orderly. This must mean he has confidence in you. I hope you will justify that confidence. Your unit has been notified and General Kahlenberge has given his personal consent.”

  Hartmann did not hear the crackle of the bad line. He was unconscious of his surroundings and aware only of the tinny, impersonal voice in his ear. He registered orders and instructions as they came over the wire but had no time to reflect on them. It was as though he were shooting rapids on a raft or clinging to a life-belt in a boiling sea—he didn’t know which.

  “To enable you to be available to the General at all times you will be quartered in the Hotel Excelsior. A room has already been reserved for you, so ask the porter for the key. You will move in immediately. Between eight o’clock and ten-thirty this evening General Tanz will be dining with General von Seydlitz-Gabler. During that time you will be off duty. From ten o’clock onwards you will remain in your room. There’s always a chance that your services will be needed. Is that clear so far?”