“It’s not necessary,” the officer said abruptly. It took him perhaps two minutes to remove his coat, the garment peeling from him like a second skin that he was hoping to take off in one long movement. Once it was done he tucked in his shirt carefully and wiped the back of his hand on his brow.
“Your husband is Johann Schultz, is he not?” the man asked. He virtually spat the words. This was an accusation, not a question.
Anja nodded, resolved to try and maintain a level of control. She would not succumb quickly to this bullying. Dieter hurried to the desk where the other man was sitting and flipped open a manila file.
“And you were married on June 20, 1938?”
A flush of warmth flowed through Anja. What a wonderful day it had been: the friends, the food, the dancing beneath the stars.… All this just seven years ago. Her mind alighted on the day briefly. It seemed both distant and immediate.
“Answer the question,” Dieter demanded, still standing on the other side of the room. His voice was flat, impatient, as if he was hurrying through preliminary material in order to get to something more meaningful.
Anja nodded again.
Dieter paused.
“So, Mrs. Schultz”—he stressed her surname heavily—“your husband is something of a hero, isn’t he? A field surgeon for almost four years in the east, he has received numerous commendations. You must be very proud.”
There was a sneering tone to the interrogator’s voice that pained her even more than the threat of violence. It was the disdain for her husband that she could not bear. She could remain silent no longer.
“I am immensely proud of my husband,” she said, her voice rising a little more than she would like. “And I know that he feels the same way about me.”
She raised her chin unconsciously as she talked and realized that her aspect was one of defiance. She thought of Nadine back in the cell and tempered her movement. She sensed Dieter smiling slightly, as if amused by her passion.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said eventually. “That’s as it should be, of course, but your position is, perhaps, slightly different.”
Anja could sense him building toward something.
“Would you feel so proud of your husband if you discovered that he wasn’t who he said he was?”
“I don’t even know what you mean,” Anja said. “How can I possibly answer a question like that? It’s absurd.”
“Absurd!” Dieter said, clapping his hands, a noise that shot through the fug of the room. “Absurd, she says.” He limped toward her slowly. As he got close he raised an eyebrow.
“Would you also consider it absurd that your husband’s name isn’t Johann Schultz, but Thomas Meier?”
Anja narrowed her eyes. What kind of foolishness was this? How did he expect her to respond to such a ludicrous premise? Had she missed something? Was this some type of SS interrogation technique that attempted to throw its subject into a state of confusion? She had heard that interrogators often deprived their subjects of sleep, or that they exposed them to light or noise in order to throw them off.
“No, it’s not,” she replied simply. “My husband’s name is Johann Schultz. You clearly have our wedding certificate. You can see for yourself. You can speak to him yourself at the front, if you wish.”
Dieter peered at Anja.
“Why are you lying to me?” he asked, his voice flat now and quieter.
“I’m not lying to you,” Anja told him.
“But you know you are.”
Dieter walked over to the desk and opened the file again. He produced the letter from Johann that Otto had given her, the one that revealed that he was coming to Berlin. He held it by a corner and waved it in her direction. Anja didn’t react.
“I believe that you are supposed to meet him at Lehrter station,” Dieter said. “Better hurry…”
“That isn’t my husband’s handwriting,” Anja said. “I don’t know its source. It arrived a few days ago and I was surprised to receive it. All other correspondence from my husband states that he is still in good health and doing his duty at the front.”
“So you deny that your husband is the author of this letter?”
Anja nodded.
Dieter examined the piece of paper as if seeking to determine its provenance through close inspection.
“In which case, would you deny the following: a thin scar on his right arm, a dislike of oysters, a passion for Bach?”
Anja listened. All three of these things registered with her. How did this terrible man know these things about her Johann? Had they captured him too? Was he also languishing in one of the cells after being captured while on his way to the station?
“The first was done while trying to climb over a barbwire fence into a farmer’s field during the summer of 1927. The second was discovered the following spring during a trip to Langer See. The last is a legacy of his father, Nicolas Meier, for whom young Thomas would play the piano.”
Anja stared at Dieter. She was confused, but was determined not to show it. She knew that Johann loved Bach, but she had never heard him play the piano. There was a gleam to her interrogator’s eyes now. He thought that he had trapped her. And maybe he had. Anja knew that she had run her fingers along the scar many times. She had swallowed oysters as Johann had pulled contorted, comic faces. And Johann had taken her to any and every performance of Bach that he could. He had even admitted to her that he had been named after the composer.
There was too much about what Dieter had said for it to be conjecture.
Either her interrogator really did know Johann, or he had her husband locked in one of the infernal cells in this hellish prison.
The sound of Kuefer striking a match broke the silence.
“Such a revelation must be a shock to you,” Dieter continued. “I understand your silence. What wife wouldn’t be surprised to discover that her husband has spent their marriage pretending to be someone else?”
Anja steeled herself. She would not let his words pierce her skin. He could throw barbs, accusations, and innuendos, and she would ignore every one. She knew that her Johann was loving and kind; even if the SS bully’s words were true, it mattered not to her. She would be the judge of her husband. After years of war, she had little left, and she would not allow her faith in Johann to be shaken. To survive the conflict she had clung to her belief in her husband, and she refused to allow it to be contested by someone who had no capacity to love.
“I know my husband,” Anja said more hotly than she would have liked. “You can tell me what you wish. It will change nothing.”
“Ah, the devoted wife!” Dieter said. “Just as it should be. Dinner on the table at six. The children to bed and then a night of pleasantries, maybe something later on…”
Anja’s mind was abuzz. It made no sense that an SS man had such a deep fascination with her husband and her life. What on earth did he want with her?
“Now,” he said, leaning down to face Anja eye to eye. “You and I have something in common.”
Anja tilted her head to one side.
“Really,” she said, feeling a chill pass through her. She wondered what he could possibly have in mind.
“I am SS-Sturmbannführer Schnell, assigned to the Gestapo,” Dieter said. “I doubt my name means very much to you, but it should.”
His voice now was low and hard. Like he was sharing something elemental. Something that Anja absolutely had to know.
“Tell me,” he said. “Does the name Schnell mean nothing to you?”
Anja shook her head. She was wondering if maybe she had encountered someone of that name before. Had she maybe taught a Schnell at school?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t think of anything.”
Dieter chuckled and stood up, placing the palms of his hands on his lower back. He stretched backward before crouching so that his face was on the same level as Anja’s. She crossed her legs just to break the tension.
Dieter said something so quietly that s
he couldn’t quite hear him.
She thought that he had said, “We’re related,” which of course was absurd. She sat impassively, waiting for Dieter to say something else. He looked at her warily, suddenly less sure of himself.
“Did you hear what I said?” he asked.
Anja, fearing a trick, was wary of telling him that she hadn’t.
“I asked you if you heard what I said,” Dieter said. This time his voice was loud, filling the small, stuffy room.
“I’m sorry,” Anja said, suddenly frightened. “I… I…”
Dieter took a breath.
“I’ll tell you again then, if I have to,” he said. He paused and then spoke again, this time enunciating his words and using his mouth to make out the shapes of the syllables. “We. Are. Related.”
Anja tensed. She felt like she had been dealt a blow to the abdomen. She had a flashback to the letter that Otto had brought her: Of course, this was the half brother whom Johann had warned her about. The knowledge flickered across her face.
“Yes,” Dieter said. “That’s right.”
He waved Johann’s letter before straightening his back and looking at her in a way that no one had before. “I know all your secrets,” he said.
Sitting at the back of the room, Kuefer made a connection—the slip of the Sturmbannführer’s tongue the previous day, when he’d said “Meier” instead of “Schultz,” had been because the man they were hunting was his half brother.
Anja folded her hands in her lap and looked at Dieter as coolly as she could manage. Her instinct was that this damaged and dangerous man was completely deranged. But there was something about the way that he was looking at her that made her doubt her instinct. She had a clear-cut feeling that he was looking through her.
“You see, Anja,” Dieter said, drawing out her name as he pronounced it, “I am in a strange situation. I need to find your husband, my half brother, as part of an ongoing investigation, and I had hoped that you might be able to tell me where he was. Only I don’t need you or that niece of yours any longer.…”
Anja sat straighter. Dieter was beginning to get down to business.
“I already know that he has been in Berlin.”
Anja’s eyes widened—Johann was here? Why hadn’t he come to find them? Had he been captured or injured? Surely the very first thing that he would have done would have been to find her?
“He paid a visit to the Reichssicherheitshauptamt here, just along Wilhelmstraße.… There was some lunatic, treacherous scheme.”
Dieter let the thought float around the room.
“He was here, Anja, fewer than five minutes from this room only yesterday. He tried to undermine the war effort but failed in his attempt. He managed to escape, but it will not be long before he is captured.”
Anja’s spirits lifted a little—Johann was still free. He had come back for her and Nadine, just as he said he would. What she had been told about his past was irrelevant. He was the man that she had always believed he was. She wondered where he was at that exact moment and about the message that she had left him outside their former apartment. Had he located it? Did he know that they had gone to Otto’s apartment?
“So you see, Anja, you have little value to me and Kuefer here since we have the letter that reveals your husband’s plans,” Dieter said. He was leaning against a desk now. He seemed tired, but was trying to hide it. “We can do what we want with you.”
Dieter poured some water from a flask into a coffee cup. The cup was much too fine to belong in this office. He must have taken it from somewhere else. Kuefer shifted in his chair, leaning forward on his desk now, opening a file and examining its contents. The inactivity preyed on Anja’s mind: She wanted only to get back to Nadine. Locked in a jail cell they could at least wait for rescue from the Soviets or Allies. She thought of Nadine curled up and alone. She needed to return to the girl. She could not allow her niece to be alone in this terrible place.
“What do you want?” Anja said. Her voice was bold. Dieter took a sip of his water before resting his palms on his legs. “Are you keeping me here solely to torment me, or is there a purpose to this?”
“I think you’ll find that it is standard practice for the family of traitors to be detained,” Dieter snapped. “And your conduct in this interview makes it very clear to us where your sympathies lie.”
“But he has served his country!” Anja shouted.
“He is a traitor!” Dieter shouted back, standing up. He lowered his voice. “And so are you.”
Anja swallowed. She wanted nothing more than to stand up and walk away. Every part of her body itched to rise from the seat. To flee from this terrible place. But she was trapped, no more able to escape Dieter than she was able to protect Nadine. Dieter finished the water in the cup and then slowly poured some more from the flask.
“There is something that might help,” Dieter said eventually.
Something inside Anja flickered. She knew that Dieter’s methodology was crude, but she couldn’t help but want to move toward the shaft of light that he was offering.
“There is an object that I am searching for that is of great national importance,” Dieter said, his eyes narrowing as if he were imagining the item. Anja said nothing, allowing him to savor his vision.
“A key,” Dieter said emphatically, immediately staring hard at Anja to gauge her reaction.
Kuefer’s ears pricked up. Here was something else for his notebook. Schnell seemed preoccupied with this key.
“A key to what?” Anja asked.
“That was not my question,” Dieter said.
Anja thought for a moment. “I don’t follow you,” she said.
“Your husband has a key.”
Anja thought of the key that Johann wore around his neck. She knew what it opened: the security box where he stored the family valuables. She had accompanied him to the bank on several occasions. She looked upward, as if trying to jog her memory.
“Well, he used to have a house key, and there were some others for his work…,” she said thoughtfully. She saw Dieter take a deep breath. “Is that what you mean? The key to the house, or to his office?”
Dieter stood silently before approaching her and placing his hands on the arms of her chair. He leaned in close. Anja could see every blemish on his cheek, every red vein in his eye.
“You know that’s not what I mean,” he said to her.
Anja stared back at Dieter as calmly as she could muster. His breath was foul, his teeth khaki.
“But those are all the keys that I can think of,” she said.
“Fine,” Dieter said, and stood up. He turned and communicated something to Kuefer, who walked out of the room.
“You should think carefully,” Dieter said. “Some reflection on how you approach the next few minutes will serve you well. Who knows? You might even make it out of here alive.”
Anja heard the door close. After a few moments she realized that she was alone. She wondered if she was being watched. If she stood up, would she find herself in deeper trouble? She shouldn’t worry about that: Is there deeper trouble? she asked herself. She gently tried the handle of the door. It was locked. Pulling the blackout to one side, she tugged at a window, but they were all impossible to open. She looked around feverishly—there must be something in the room that would help her.
Anja rushed to Dieter’s desk and began opening the drawers. They were full of office supplies—forms, pencils, tape, paper clips. There was nothing for her. She pushed them closed and sized up the windows. She scanned the room for other options while trying to listen to what was happening in the corridor. Surely she didn’t have long.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a metallic flash from beside the other man’s desk. She fell on her hands and knees and reached into the space between the edge of the desk and a radiator. She stretched desperately, her hand inching forward for the object. Her fingers were just inches away when she heard footsteps in the hallway. With one almighty
effort she snatched it up: There—in her hands was a metal letter opener. She felt the sharp edges as soon as she grasped it, before quickly throwing herself back into the chair. As soon as she was seated she tucked the thing inside her skirt where it met the base of her spine.
Seconds later the door opened, and Dieter walked back into the room. He stood in front of Anja.
“I have someone to see you,” he said, and gestured someone forward.
Kuefer led Nadine into the room. The girl walked past Anja, her arms crossed defensively. Anja gasped and stood up.
She turned to face Dieter.
“So this is what we have come to—terrorizing children?”
Dieter considered this for a moment.
“There has been no terrorizing,” he said coolly. “Believe me, if there had been, the girl would be in a very different frame of mind.”
“Take her back to the cell,” Anja said. “There’s no need for her to be here. I will tell you everything I can.”
Dieter considered the offer before nodding to Kuefer, who led Nadine from the room. As the girl walked past she reached out quickly and squeezed her aunt’s shoulder as the woman sat down. Anja looked up at the girl and smiled. She wanted to show Nadine that she wasn’t broken.
The door closed again.
“I warn you,” Anja said. “If anything happens to her I swear that I will kill you.”
“Really?” Dieter said disinterestedly. “I’m fascinated to know how you think you might accomplish that.”
“What do you want to know?” Anja said contemptuously.
“The key,” Dieter said. “And the bank where the security box is stored. I need to know.”
Anja nodded.
“All right,” she said, swallowing hard. She knew that Johann would forgive her.
The Nero Decree Page 25
