by Ian Andrew
“That’s impressive,” said Leigh and realised she genuinely meant it. It was an elite way into the SS and not many were afforded it. Even less a transferee from the Waffen-SS that was injured.
“I know. To be honest, I was dumbstruck. Literally, I couldn’t think of what to say or do. I just stared at him and after a short time nodded, mumbled a thank you and saluted. Not exactly the most auspicious of meetings.”
“My father set that up for you?” Leigh almost asked it to herself.
“Yes. He was a good man.” Heinrich smiled at her.
Leigh genuinely smiled back at him.
“Your father mentioned that it would mean having to go to Oxford University to study, but he was sure I could cope. That was pretty much that. Friedrichand departed the building and I was escorted to Gestapo headquarters to complete all the usual mound of paperwork.”
“Heinrich?”
“Yes?”
“In all this time, did my father ever mention me?”
“He said he had a daughter, yes. He said you were a leading member of the University Officers’ Corps at Cambridge and that you were a solid member of the Party. Later he told me you were working out in Germany for the Security Directorate, but no details. That was all he or your mother ever mentioned until much later.”
“Okay. Listen do you mind if I smoke? I’m gasping for one.”
“Are you allowed to in here?”
“Heinrich, we… Well you… Are, possibly, talking about stuff that can get you shot and you want to know if there’s a no-smoking policy?”
“Fair point.” Heinrich got up and retrieved a side plate from one of the dish racks at the counter and returned. “You go right ahead. You do realise they’re not good for you,” he chided her.
“Yes, I do, but I also read a startling statistic the other month.”
“What was that?”
“Well, apparently one hundred percent of non-smokers, that’s one hundred percent of them, will also,” Leigh paused for comic effect, “die.” She smiled smugly at him and lit her cigarette.
He leant back and laughed a gentle self-mocking laugh. “I’ll remember not to tell you off for smoking again then.”
She took a deep draw of the smoke and as she exhaled she asked, “So you joined the Gestapo at the request of the Reichsführer-SS. What next?”
“I spent a few months doing all of the normal basic investigative courses and was attached to a senior investigator until my start date for Oxford in 2007. I selected Criminal Psychology and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was invited to your parent’s house for the first time that September.”
“Sorry Heinrich, September, why not earlier?”
“Your father had apologised it hadn’t been sooner but he or your mother were always scheduled for one event or another. He also said it was good for me to find my own feet first.”
Leigh realised the real reason may well have been because she was finishing at Cambridge and was around the house a lot in 2007. In the August she had secured a placement to study for her Postgraduate Degree in Stuttgart which saw her leaving on a permanent basis. She hadn’t lived in her parent’s house since then. That at least told her that in 2007 her father and mother still had a long way to go before they trusted Heinrich. She said nothing.
“Anyway, I would go up there and stay the odd weekend. I was going to do a Masters straight after my undergrad and with the time I spent at your parent’s house, reading their library, I decided that English Literature would be an interesting subject. Simply put, your parents and I became friends. We would occasionally go to the theatre in Cambridge together. I was invited to attend some of your mother’s performances in London. If they invited me for the weekend I sat with them and talked to them. I did see photographs of you around the house but we never spoke of you because of the nature of where you worked. You don’t start a conversation by asking, oh what’s your daughter doing in the Security Directorate? It wasn’t like they worked at keeping you out of any discussions. It just was what it was.”
She nodded and considered what he’d said.
He continued, “Sometimes we would talk about the world. The four Empires and how the planet was shaping up. Later, around December ‘09 or early ‘10 we started talking about the Reich and what scared it into doing some of the things it did. The conversations got deeper and more interesting. I looked forward so much to going up to their house.” Heinrich stopped. He stared down at the table and his eyes looked profoundly sad.
“What is it?” Leigh asked.
“My mum died on the Twenty-first of December 2010. I was in England and she was back in Germany. I had gone back to see her during the summer break but she was on her own when she died. An aortic aneurysm. The doctors said it had probably taken less than ten minutes for her to die from the moment it burst and that she didn’t feel anything. But I was full of thoughts that she had been so terribly alone when her time came.” Heinrich’s voice was laden with remembered grief.
“I’m really sorry Heinrich.”
He gave a resigned smile and nod, “I obviously went back to Germany to sort things out. Once the funeral was over, I made arrangements to clear the house, lease it and then I returned to England. Your parents invited me up to Cambridgeshire for the Twenty-first of January. It was my 30th birthday and they had guessed I would be spending it getting quietly drunk and depressed. So they resolved to cheer me up, which they did. I had a great day with them. We got frozen as we walked through the Colleges of Cambridge and when we finally got back to the house in Warboys, we sat in the kitchen and drank mulled wine. That Saturday evening as we chatted I told them about my mum being alone. I cried for the first time since she had died. Your mother reached over and took my hand and said quite softly, ‘She wasn’t alone. Our Lord was with her’.” Heinrich looked at Leigh. She wasn’t crying but he could see the emotion in her eyes. The glistening that bordered on tears. She nodded for him to go on.
“I looked at your mother and I didn’t say anything. I just cried a bit more. Your father started to talk about the Turner Religion. Of the simple message that each of the Prophets had brought. Of the unification of all the Messengers of God. He spoke of the idea that God was one destination reached via many paths. He spoke of the binding together of the Old Book and the new way. He spoke of how Jesus’s message of tolerance for the other beliefs in the world had been the single greatest event in history. Of how, once nonviolence and love had been shown to succeed in the face of opposition, humanity had entered its golden period.”
“When he talked about the peaceful coexistence and gentle progress of humanity I began to doubt the Reich for the first time. I learnt about Jesus entering into Jerusalem in triumph. How the Pharisees welcomed him, the Discourse of the Pharisees on the Fast of the Firstborn, the conversion of Pilate, the delegation to Rome, the conversion of the Emperor and the building of the Temples in Rome, Alexandria and Constantinople.”
“Your father was more animated and passionate than I had ever seen or heard him. Your mother taught me of the last Prophet and how He had continued the divine message. Of how He had united the factions and how the Council of Medina bound the religion together. I learnt how He had followed Jesus in ascending. I learnt how as the centuries progressed the great religions of the East were recognised as being just different paths to the same outcome. We talked and talked for hours. Eventually I looked at the two of them and asked them why they trusted me enough to talk to me like this. I could just go to the authorities. Your mother said, ‘We let the wheel turn at its own pace. God places you where you need to be’...”
“...and sends the people he needs to send.” Leigh finished the sentence for him.
The silence of the cafeteria bound them together and they sat quietly for a long time thinking of their separate memories of a shared phrase.
Eventually, Heinrich continued, “So in 2011, I finished at Oxford and returned to Germany, with an awful lot to think about.”
“I nee
d more coffee. You?” Leigh pushed herself up from the table. Heinrich nodded.
He watched her walk away to the vending machines. He had often looked at her photos in Donald and Rosalyn’s house. He had always thought her pretty. But from the moment he saw her tonight he realised she was much more. Her prettiness had matured into beauty. Her body moved with a grace. A sensual grace that he found himself unable to look away from. Being one of the top scientists of her generation, she was obviously intelligent, but he hadn’t expected her to be such a complete package of mind and body.
He smiled as he watched her from across the room. When she looked back over to him and held his gaze he felt that lurch in his heart and stomach. He knew it from first longings and first kisses and first loves. The emotional kick that the body loved and craved and the mind became intoxicated by. He tried not to break into a wider grin and failed.
She returned to her seat and slid his coffee over. “What were you smiling at?”
“Oh nothing really,” he lied badly.
Leigh smiled back at him and almost reached across the table to take his hand. She stopped herself and simply said, “Go on with your story Heinrich.”
“I was identified as an ‘oaf’.”
Leigh looked puzzled, “An oaf? Really? Not exactly a compliment, surely?”
He smirked as he said, “Actually, yes it is. An O, H, F is an Offiziersanwärter mit Herausragenden Führungsqualitäten. It’s just pronounced ‘oaf’ and meant that they’d identified me as someone with the potential to achieve senior rank so I was posted into the most demanding of the security divisions. On graduation from Oxford my Waffen-SS rank was aligned to that of a Gestapo Kriminaldirektor and I was assigned to Department B in Headquarters, Berlin.”
Leigh’s features hardened, “Sects and Churches; was that your choice?”
“No, I took your parent’s advice and just went where I was sent. I worked some low-level investigations and continued to wrestle with the feelings and thoughts that had begun the night of my Birthday. What do you know about Department B?” he asked.
“Only what’s out in common knowledge. They’re the ‘hunters of the holy’, the ‘scourge of the saved’.”
He gave a small, tight laugh. “B Department had been reorganised in the 1970s to have complete responsibility for matters regarding religious groups throughout the whole of the Reich. We also had special powers to liaise with and assist the Spanish, Italian and Japanese authorities. I got to visit the New Spanish Nations in South America to look at the ancient Aztec sites, Italy’s African colonies to look at the Egyptian sites and even Tokyo and down to the Japanese Australian Territories. My first job was down there helping the Japanese to investigate a Turner sect in Hobart. They’d been discovered holding meetings in a park that used to be a cemetery. When they were rounded up their leader had a document in his possession that was later claimed to be an original Gospel manuscript. The Japanese knew that it was outside of their capabilities, so they handed it to us. I was given access to the Religious Archives in Berlin.”
“How many Turners?” Leigh asked.
“Sixteen active members. But after their families were rounded up in the DNA screenings it was a total of one hundred and twenty eight.”
“All of them?” she asked with a catch in her voice.
Heinrich just nodded his head in answer.
Chapter 10
The spring rain had begun to fall more heavily outside the cafeteria windows. The lights of the security compound were transformed into a fuzzy, translucent haze that split into multicoloured spikes as the droplets running down the pane acted as prisms.
Leigh and Heinrich both looked out at the night. He felt renewed guilt at how he had assisted in the murder of innocents and she was trying to come to terms with the possibility that Heinrich might well be what he professed to be.
Heinrich spoke quietly, “The Archives, Leigh. The place is fascinating. Back in the 1930s the plan was to destroy everything to do with any religion, but the old Nazi occultists wanted to study the writings to see if there was anything of relevance. In the end I think the German national obsession with record keeping kicked in. So they built a special repository and added to it over the years. Anything remotely of interest went in there. The writings and the documents that they hold are truly awe-inspiring. When the Hobart document came up I was given free access and spent a lot of time trying to authenticate it.”
His voice carried the excitement he had felt on first entering the building on Berlin’s Oranienburger Straße. “Oh Leigh, I’ve seen the oldest existing copy of the Gospel of Jesus. Actually seen it and with the help of the archivists translated it from the original Hebrew. I even managed to become passable in Hebrew and Latin myself. I’ve seen a partial scroll of the first Sanhedrin, when He was initially heralded and an official Roman record from the Conference of the Pharisees in AD 65. That’s an actual transcription of the moment in history when the whole of the Jewish Nation of the Old Book formally adopted the teachings of the New.”
Heinrich’s eyes danced with enthusiasm as he continued, “I’ve held The Medina Accord from 622 when the Quraish resolved to assist the Prophet, to end the persecutions and merge the teachings of the Messengers of God. It is amazing Leigh, I wish you could see it. It’s no wonder the Archive is one of the most secure facilities in the Reich. That’s where my conversion truly took hold. I read the documents outlining the events your father had told me about. I discovered a purpose.”
“And all this time you kept in touch with my parents?” she asked, still trying to evaluate the man in front of her.
“During my tour of duty I would get to visit England, albeit infrequently, but I would always catch up with your parents. We talked of the documents. We spoke of the truth they held and the real evil of the Reich. We talked about how a conspiracy on a vast scale to bring down the regime would be impossible to achieve. They told me how a few well-placed people might just be able to stage a coup d’état. That was the plan your grandfather and others like him had worked out. The long term and slow infiltration of the system to its highest levels.”
Leigh appraised him as he spoke. She could see that either he was a phenomenally good actor or he was telling her the truth. She had known this man for, she glanced at her watch, it was just two hours since she had received his first call. Two hours. Her life was changed either way.
“It was a slow process Leigh. It wasn’t a sudden moment or flash revelation. But in May 2014 I had some leave owing and went to see your parents. I arrived on the Saturday night and told them that I wanted to become a Turner. We spent the next couple of days discussing how and what it would mean. The things I would have to do to continue doing my job, yet keep believing in the truth and the central tenets. They told me over and over that I’d have to resolve the struggle in my heart and soul each and every time I was forced to deny the love I felt. How, if I wanted to fulfil the destiny, I’d have to look for ways to defeat the tyranny. On the Monday night I said the Turner Creed for the first time. Rosalyn warned me that the years of duplicity could wear you down and leave a mark. I showed them the Deuna Crest and it was, quite simply, the best night of my life.” Heinrich smiled.
“The next morning, as I was leaving they said they were going to catch a flight over to Paderborn to see you. For the first time they both spoke of you and what you did. Donald told me that he needed to talk to you. I thought he just meant he was going to tell you about me. But he said that when you were a little girl he’d made you promise to keep your beliefs a complete secret. To trust no one. They said that they now thought I could be an ally in the struggle and it was important that you knew as well. That perhaps the two of us might be able to help one another if the right opportunity came along. But, that without him telling you then you’d never accept me as a friend let alone a confidant. They couldn’t exactly ring you up to discuss this so they were going to go and see you.”
“Over the years I’d asked your parents many
questions. The last ones I asked that morning were why they trusted me and why they were prepared to tell you to do the same. Your father said that apart from having had ample opportunity to have him, Rosalyn, you and all your extended family lifted, no one had ever been arrested and taken away. But then he said the real reason was because he and Rosalyn regarded me as a friend and when I had professed my belief through the Creed they could see God in my heart. It was that simple. I said my goodbyes, we hugged and I drove off. They got ready to go to you.” Heinrich stopped.
As he looked at Leigh he could see the sadness in her eyes. “I am so sorry Leigh. I’ve regretted it every day since. If I had believed earlier, or later, they wouldn’t have gone to see you. You wouldn’t have been in the car.”
He paused and took a drink of cold coffee. He emptied the cup and looked at her across the table. She still hadn’t spoke and he could see she was clinching her jaw against the memories.
“I read the reports of the accident and I doubted that they had even had a chance to mention my name let alone tell you what was happening. They would have wanted to wait until they were somewhere private and secure.”
He spoke quietly, “Leigh, didn’t you ever wonder why they were coming out to see you on such short notice?”
“No I didn’t,” her voice was almost breaking with the emotion of recalling that day. “It wasn’t unusual. They travelled to Germany a lot. I was in Paderborn on a research project and they would just ring up and say they were coming over. It wasn’t unusual and seriously Heinrich, do you think they’d have mentioned the reason for their visit on an open phone line?”
He shook his head slowly, knowing what she had said was right. They sat quietly, both regretting the conversation that had never taken place.
“Did you go to their funeral?” Leigh asked.
“Yes I was there. I knew you were still in hospital on the critical list.” Heinrich looked and felt older than his years when he thought back to that day. As he watched the friends he loved being given a State Funeral by a state they despised.
