by Ian Andrew
“The Harz mountains?” he tried vainly to get some recognition over to her.
“Give me a reference Heinrich, I’m a physicist. Geography was never that big on my list.”
“Okay, it’s about 250-kilometres south-west of Berlin and 150 south-south-east of Hannover. Does that help?”
“Sort of.” She had no idea where Deuna was, but it didn’t actually matter to her.
Heinrich laughed. “See that’s the normal reaction I get. But your father said ‘Ah! Deuna’, like he knew it. I asked him how he recognised the name and he said it had an interesting history. He asked me if I knew of the Deuna Crest.”
“The what?”
“It’s the ancient heraldic coat that the village used until the rise of the Reich. Anyway, I said I knew nothing of it, but I said it a little too quickly. Your father knew I was lying and yet he just smiled. He said, ‘Don’t worry, all is good’, wished me luck and went on his way.”
“So what’s the significance of a crest?”
“I told you; it was the ancient sign of the village. But it had some particular imagery in it that didn’t sit too well with the new government. So it was banned and all copies of it purged from the records.”
“How come you knew about it?”
“When I was nine years old, my grandmother was dying. The night before she passed she gave me a pendant that she had carried with her since childhood. She told me it was for me and not to tell anyone about it. She made me promise her. I didn’t realise the implications of it until I was older, but I loved her an awful lot so I kept the promise and the pendant. I still have it.”
Heinrich reached into his pocket and slipped a small shield-shaped, enamelled, copper pendant onto the table. It was only three centimetres by two and although its colours were a little faded they were still bright enough to show the detailed design. The curved bottom half of the shield was white with a stylistic three-spire building atop a representation of water. The top half of the tiny shield had a red background. Centrally mounted in this, picked out in white enamel, was a six-spoke wheel.
Leigh looked down at the pendant, before picking it up and examining it closely. She got up from the table and moved to the counters so she could examine the pendant under the counter lights. She knew little about antiquities but anyone could see that this was old. She was still staring at the pendant as she said, “Are you insane carrying this around? It has a Turner wheel on it.” She looked over at him.
“Well, it has a Turner Church on it too. That’s what the building in the bottom half represents. The three spires for the three peoples of the Book.”
Leigh nodded.
“But no I’m not insane. I said I kept it, not that I keep it on my person, not normally. Tonight is an exception. When I joined the Hitler Youth and began to learn about the enemies of the Reich, obviously I figured out what my grandmother had given to me. So I hid it. I kept it hidden. No one knew I had it, no one. In fact, since my grandmother placed it in my hand that pendant has only been seen by me, your parents just before they died and now you.”
Leigh retook her seat opposite him, “What about your parents?”
“No. My father was ex-army but after nine years he left the Service and went to work at the Power Station that’s just outside Deuna. He died in a fire on the site six months before I was born.”
“I’m sorry,” Leigh said and meant it.
“It’s okay, I never knew him. To be honest I don’t think my mum ever recovered properly. So her mum came to live with us and help out with me. Like I said, I was a little boy and I loved my grandmother dearly. She made me promise not to tell anyone about the pendant, so I didn’t. Then, when I learnt just what she had bequeathed to me, telling anyone at all was out of the question.”
“Is your mum still alive?”
“No, she died a few years ago. But Leigh, let me get through this. I’ll tell you about my mum later, okay?” Heinrich looked at her.
“Okay,” she said softly. “So no one knew about it. What did my father say to you?” Leigh set the pendant down on the table and realised that this interrogation was completely switched around. She was asking the questions.
“Nothing. That was it. I didn’t produce the pendant and say, ‘Da-Dah!’ Actually, yes I know about the crest, I have a copy here.” He framed his hands like a stage-magician pointing out his box of tricks.
Leigh felt some of the tension slip away. She was still unsure where this was going but she was beginning to think it might not be headed for a cell or a firing squad.
“It was just like I said, he knew the village, asked me about the crest, I lied to him and he told me not to worry. He had obviously figured I knew about the symbol and was embarrassed by it. I was young and not that good at lying to anyone, let alone a man like your father. That was it.” Heinrich took a sip of his coffee. Almost reverentially he picked up the pendant and slipped it back into his pocket.
“Okay, so you met him in ‘03, how do you go from there to his study?”
“In a series of steps that seemed unconnected then, but now seem like a well-worn path.”
“Go on,” she encouraged.
“I met him and your mother at a formal reception in Berchtesgaden for the New Year celebrations in December 2004. Your mother had been invited to play for the Führer. I guess you remember that as well.”
“Yeah, that was a major honour for mum,” Leigh lied. She knew her mother had dreaded the event. “I remember the Führer had heard one of her recordings of Quantz’s Flute compositions and asked for her to play at a reception at the retreat. As dad was a well known supporter of the Party everything was very easy to organise. I didn’t go. I was too busy having a ball in Cambridge.” She smiled at the memories of that time before thinking she had spotted a major flaw in Heinrich’s story.
“Hang on Heinrich. You would have been a Junior Officer. What were you doing at a private function at the Kehlsteinhaus?” she asked.
“I was a member of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. Got posted there after Officer training. All the best did you know.” He stopped and looked for a reaction from her.
“Yes, I imagine they did and occasionally the odd one like you would slip through.” She smirked back at him. He laughed out loud and dipped his head in mock submission.
“Go on Heinrich, tell me about that night.”
“We were just a regular troop deployment but on formal events we would be turned out as pretty guards all standing around looking shiny. The Führer always used us if the Japanese or Spanish or Italians were turning up. I think he wanted them to see us as his own Praetorian Guard. I guess we were. Anyway, I was stood in the reception area. Your father spotted me and wandered over to talk to me. I thought it was remarkable that he remembered me from the lecture over a year beforehand, but he said that he was pleased to see me ‘Sans-Sling’ and laughed.”
Leigh smiled at the thought of her father cracking one of his lame jokes. He had a manner that seemed to relax the people around him. It had allowed a man so devoted to the overthrow of the Reich to mix freely with the men he despised.
“He spoke to me about generalities and then said, ‘So Heinrich, what ambition do you hold?’ I told him straight away. I remember my youthful enthusiasm all bubbly and confident and it makes me cringe now. But then I was just cocky so I told him I was happy in the Division, but I wanted to be on the Führer’s close protection unit. Your father just looked at me and said, ‘You will be, you will be. If you want it enough and you frame the thought in your mind, you can make it happen.’ That was it.” Heinrich paused and looked at Leigh.
“That’s it?”
“Well yes, what did you expect? I was a show pony on a massive night for the Führer and your father was a VIP. He could hardly spend the night talking to me could he? Your mother came over and he introduced me but then they left.”
“You remember this passing conversation from fifteen years ago?”
“Well no Leigh, I didn�
�t. I did remember his advice about positive thinking, but no, I doubt I would have remembered the details. But as the years progressed and I met you parents again then yes, those memories became more important. They weren’t just passing irrelevances anymore. As we talked and remembered them so they became reinforced. Like memories with friends do.” Heinrich voice had taken on an edge. Leigh recognised it as a rising annoyance that she still mistrusted his story.
“Okay, sorry, go on. Please go on.”
“I worked hard and I don’t mean it to sound prideful, but I was good. In October 2005 after two years in the Division I was selected for specialist training and posted to the Führer’s Close Protection Detail.”
“What? You were one of the guys with the earpieces and the sunglasses?” Leigh asked.
“Yes, the guys with the sunglasses. But we did do a bit more than look cool. Although, to be fair, we did do cool quite well.” Heinrich smiled and asked her, “Do you remember March 2006?”
She shook her head, “I was still at University, in my third year. Why, what happened?”
“Berlin, March 2006, you don’t remember?” He paused for her to think. The look on her face changed, she registered disbelief.
“The assassination attempt on the Führer? You were there?” she blurted the question out. He said nothing, just nodded and smiled a strange half-smile, half-grimace. She looked at him and saw the strength in the man. She saw his eyes that for the most part sparkled and laughed but occasionally held memories that were deep and dark. She studied his face and then she realised.
“My God, you’re him?”
Chapter 9
Heinrich sat back and raised his tee-shirt up on the left side. There was a deep and ugly scar running the length of his lower ribs. A skilled surgeon had attempted to make the best of a horrendous wound but cosmetic grafts couldn’t hide the damage.
“Yes, him. The man who saved the Führer. Who took the bullet and saved the day. Well, not the bullet obviously, but the very sharp knife.” He smiled. “All the publicity that surrounded it and thankfully, because of the nature of our jobs, we were never exposed. The whole of the close protection team were assured anonymity. All the reports and all the enquiries and never once was my identity released to the public. But yes, I was him. I am him.”
They were quiet. She watched as he lowered his tee-shirt and she waited for him to push the pain of the memory into wherever he kept it sealed.
“Your father flew out to visit me in hospital, did you know that?”
“No!” Leigh said surprised.
“He stood by my bedside and handed me a small parcel. He said he was sorry he hadn’t been farsighted enough to bring it the last time he met me and laughed at his own joke. I didn’t get it and he just said, ‘Don’t worry Heinrich, but I thought you would appreciate the story and like the irony. It’s proof of the value of a classical education’.”
“What was in the parcel?” Leigh sounded intrigued.
“Calm down, nothing exciting. Well, I thought nothing exciting at first. He had brought me a copy of Shakespeare’s Julius Cesar. I wasn’t going anywhere so I read it and to be honest I struggled through it. But after that I was kind of hooked on Shakespeare.” Heinrich looked at her. She was looking at him, watching him closely. “You are too Leigh, I know. Your mum and dad told me.”
“Well, I like it but not like my dad did. Anyway, what’s this got to do with you and him?” she said it quite abruptly.
“I read it and laughed and really appreciated Donald’s sense of humour. I knew he’d taken a chance making even a slight joke out of the events and I felt very honoured that he had taken the time to share it with me.”
“I don’t understand Heinrich, what has Julius Caesar got to do with this?”
“You’re telling me you’ve never read the play?”
“No, it’s boring and all about ancient Rome. Give me a break. I like Shakespeare but I’m not a freak.”
“The Ides of March?” Heinrich paused and looked at her. She registered the same look as she had when he had mentioned his home village.
“The Fifteenth of March was the day Caesar was attacked inside the Senate. It’s also, of course, the date of the Founding Führer’s death. On the Fifteenth of March 2006, the third Führer and his wife were going to the Reichstag Museum to unveil a new portrait of his father. Given the circumstances, if I’d read Shakespeare, I might have been a bit more wary. That was what your dad meant about the value of a classical education. Anyway, I didn’t have one of those and I guess neither did the rest of the guys on the Detail. So when the attacker ran from the crowd we didn’t react quickly enough. It was obvious we weren’t going to get shots off before he covered the distance so instead I moved into his path and took the blade into the ribs. The rest of the team dragged him off me. You’ve seen the news reports. It was all over in seconds. I was the hero. Stabbed four times and the Führer was saved.” He looked down at the table as he said it. He reached for his coffee and took a sip. It was still vile and getting cold but he drunk it.
“You got the Führer’s personal award, the Deutscher Orden. It was a massive thing, I remember the headlines. Only the what? The twentieth in the whole history of the Reich?” she looked at him with amazement on her face.
“Twenty-second.”
“What?”
“Twenty-second. There was an oversight on the Propaganda Ministry’s part. There had been twenty-one previous awards, but yes, it was a big deal. I was only the eighth to get it non-posthumously.”
“Anyway, I was laid up in hospital and medically down-graded so I couldn’t go back on to the Detail. All in all I was in convalescence and physiotherapy for months. I was fairly down. My exuberance and cockiness had evaporated. I thought my career was over and was getting quietly depressed.”
Heinrich looked out the cafeteria window. He could see the first flecks of rain marking the glass but his focus was far off in time. Leigh was quiet and waited. She knew the emotions he would have faced in the hospital bed. She had faced them during her life. The frustration of not being able to do the things you took for granted. The shock of having nearly died, the realisation that life and career may be destroyed. She watched him watching the increasingly frequent raindrops.
Heinrich spoke to the drops on the window, as if lost in his memories, “Your father came to see me a couple of times a month whilst I was in hospital. He spoke to me about life and opportunity and generally just chatted to me about the things that interested me. He became a friend to me. He told me that he was sure things would work out. It was the fifth time he came to see me that I finally got the courage up to tell him I knew about the Deuna Crest. He asked me how and I told him about my grandmother’s gift. I didn’t show him it. It was hidden far away from the hospital, I didn’t even tell him I still had it. I just told him about it.”
Leigh realised the enormity of what Heinrich had done. “But you only knew my father as a massive supporter of the Party. By telling him that your grandmother had been a Turner, you faced losing everything. They would have stripped you of your Commission, your awards, possibly even your life Heinrich. What were you thinking?”
Heinrich turned back into the room and looked deep into Leigh’s eyes. “I was thinking he was my friend and I didn’t want to keep anything from him.”
She held his gaze and began to realise her father had seen the same as she was seeing now. Heinrich was an intelligent, thoughtful and sensitive man. He might have followed a specific path through life but he was not a blinkered serf of the State.
“Donald just said ‘thank you for telling me’ and that he would never reveal anything of our conversation. He continued to visit and in the June he brought your mother out to see me. She was a very special woman, but I guess I don’t need to tell you that, do I?”
Leigh smiled and shook her head. A classically trained flautist and harpist, Rosalyn Wilson had been a featured soloist for the London Philharmonic, the Berlin Symphony and th
e New Munich Philharmonic Orchestras. She had released three award winning albums, played for the Führer, the Spanish, Italian and Japanese Emperors, was the recipient of the German Classical Societies Honoured Fellowship Award and held an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Belfast. As a native of the town, the latter had made her smile more than any other plaudit. She was also a lifelong hater of the regime she had grown up in.
“She was so kind to me and simply told me that life would turn out the way it was meant. That I shouldn’t force my career or my plans and things would be okay.” Heinrich smiled at the memory. “Your father said that I had nothing to worry about. That the man who saved the Führer’s life would be looked after. He last visited me on the day I was being released from the physiotherapy-convalescent centre. I was allegedly ‘all cured’ and thought I was going to be met by a driver, taken to SS administration and medically discharged. There was no position in the Waffen-SS for someone who had no chance of being medically upgraded again. The damage to the lung was always going to mean a lack of full fitness. I was sitting on the side of the bed just waiting when your father came in and said he had brought someone to see me. In walked Reichsführer-SS Jason Friedrichand. When he came into the room I leapt up so quickly I nearly ruptured my side.”
“Hmm,” Leigh said. “Jason and dad went back a long way. Dad called him the most evil man who...” Leigh stopped herself. She realised that if this was a clever interrogation being constructed by Heinrich, then she had just provided him his coup de grâce. She looked away into the empty room.
“Leigh, it’s okay. The most evil man who ever held that post. He said the same to me, later. In comparison to Himmler’s legacy your father said that Friedrichand was worse in every regard. However, on the day he introduced me he just said that the Reichsführer wanted to talk to me about a job. I was not to be discharged from the Service. Instead Jason Friedrichand himself asked me...”
Leigh’s eyebrows raised.
“...asked me, yes. Not told me, he asked me if I would like to transfer to the Allgemeine-SS and onto the Gestapo Graduate program.”
