The Other Side of Silence

by Philip Kerr

  “I always thought I’d get married in here,” said Irmela as we wandered hand in hand around the ruins.

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “There was someone, but he was killed at Stalingrad.”

  “One of the lucky ones, probably.”

  “You think so?”

  “We won’t see most of those boys again. From what we know in the FHO, they’re most of them working in Soviet slave-labor camps. If you ask me, your boyfriend was spared.” I nodded. “So, let’s you and I get married instead. In here. Right now. Come on. Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, you’re already married,” she said, “in case you’d forgotten.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything? Besides, my wife is back in Berlin and I’ll probably never see her again. Oh, and there’s this for good measure: You say you love me and I certainly love you and I just happen to have a ring on my finger that will do for a ceremony until I can buy another. Besides, you’ll probably be a widow before very long. And the blasphemy and bigamy certainly doesn’t matter either since I’m going to hell already. If it makes you feel any better I’ll take full responsibility for this when I get down there. I’ll say, ‘Look, it wasn’t Irmela’s fault, I persuaded her.’”

  “You promise?”

  “I can include that in the vows we make, if you like.”

  “We don’t even have a priest.”

  “Who needs a priest in a Lutheran cathedral? I thought that was the whole idea of the German Reformation. To abolish priestly intercession. Besides, I can remember all the damn words. I’ve been married enough times already to know them by heart.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Under the circumstances I can’t honestly see that God will mind very much. Frankly, I think he’ll be glad that anyone can be in a ruin like this and still believe that the idea of God is even possible.”

  “I think he’s possible, just not very likely,” she said. “There were a hundred children killed in this cathedral when they took shelter from those RAF bombs. As a way of confirming that God doesn’t exist it probably beats Nietzsche, don’t you think?”

  “In which case this will be like a second chance for him. For God, yes. A good way for him to get started in this city again. A chance to make it up to us. To show us that he really means something. You know, I’ll bet we’ll be the first people to get married in this church since that happened.”

  “You’re mad, do you know that?” But she was smiling. “Why do you want to do this?”

  “Because words matter, don’t they? Most of the time I don’t say what I mean just to keep from being arrested by the Gestapo. For once I’d like to say something that’s actually important and mean it.”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  We were still celebrating our mock marriage—to be honest, it had seemed a lot more than a mock marriage at the time—with a horsemeat dinner in the Spätenbrau Restaurant when the devil put in an early appearance, as might have been expected after our lighthearted blasphemy. An unexpected bottle of extremely good Riesling arrived at our table, followed closely by its handsome donor, an SD captain whom, for a moment—it had been six years—I only half-remembered. But he remembered me, all right. Blackmailers need to have good memories. It was Harold Hennig, and to my irritation, he greeted me as if we’d been old friends.

  “Berlin, wasn’t it?” he said. “January, thirty-eight.”

  I stood up; he was a captain, after all, and I a mere lieutenant and it was a few moments before I connected him with the von Frisch case.

  “Yes. It was. Gunther. FHO.”

  “Harold Hennig,” he said, and clicked his heels as he bowed politely at Irmela. “Well, Gunther, aren’t you going to introduce me to this charming young lady?”

  “This is Over Auxiliary—?” I was never quite sure of her non-military rank in the women’s auxiliary and glanced at Irmela, who nodded back that I’d got this right. “Miss Irmela Schaper.”

  “May I join you both?”

  “Yes.”

  “You look as if you’re celebrating something,” he observed.

  “We’re alive,” I said. “That’s always a cause for celebration these days.”

  “True.” Captain Hennig sat down and took out an elegant, amber cigarette case, which he opened in front of us to reveal a perfectly paraded battalion of good cigarettes and then offered them around the table. “True. Where there’s life, there’s hope, eh?”

  Irmela took one of his cigarettes and studied it like an interesting curio, and then sniffed the tobacco appreciatively. “I don’t know if I should smoke this or keep it as a souvenir.”

  “Smoke it,” he said, “and take another one for later.”

  So she did.

  “Is this what the Gestapo is smoking these days?” I said, savoring the taste of a real nail. “Things must be better than I thought.”

  “Oh, I’m not with the Gestapo anymore,” he said. “Not since the beginning of the war. I work for the Erich Koch Institute now.”

  “On the corner of Tragheimer and Gartenstrasse,” said Irmela. “I know that building.”

  “Since the bombing we’re rather more often found in Friedrichsberg.”

  “That must be nice,” I said. “And a lot safer, too, I’d have thought.”

  Erich Koch was the Nazi Party gauleiter of East Prussia, and his huge country estate at Friedrichsberg, just outside the city, was the center of his commercial exploitation of the province, which, by all accounts, was completely unscrupulous. But his authority was absolute and General Lasch was obliged to give way to Koch’s imperious demands. Even now the Erich Koch Institute in the city’s Tragheim district was being remodeled—to a princely standard, it was bruited; while, at Koch’s orders, a large number of civilian workers was soon to be put to work building an airplane runway on Paradeplatz, presumably so Koch could make a quick getaway in his personal Focke-Wulf Condor—and this at a time when there was a more pressing need to build the city’s defenses for the Battle of Königsberg that was coming as soon as winter was over. Everyone assumed it would be the spring thaw of 1945 when the Red Army made its big push against the city. Right now, everything was frozen solid. Even the Russians. It was Erich Koch who had refused to consider the comprehensive and systematic plan proposed by General Lasch for the immediate evacuation of all civilians from East Prussia and who had placed his faith in building a wall—the Erich Koch Wall—in a place and to a construction standard that was of questionable value.

  “The governor isn’t in Friedrichsberg for reasons of his own personal safety,” explained Hennig, “but because that’s simply the best place to coordinate the defense of the city. It’s not just Königsberg that’s under threat but Danzig, too. Rest assured, the governor is looking after all our interests.”

  “I was sure he would be,” I said, but everyone knew that Koch was looking out for his own interests most of all. I had a good idea that the Park Hotel where I was living was actually owned by the Erich Koch Institute and that the army was obliged to pay Koch four marks a night for every officer staying there, but I thought it best to confine my comments to general approval of the gauleiter. Koch was notoriously touchy and inclined to order the arrest and execution of anyone critical of his absolute rule. Public executions were common in Königsberg, with bodies left hanging from lampposts near the refugee camps on the southern side of the city where, it was believed, there was a much greater need for discipline.

  “And what service do you perform for Governor Koch?” I asked Hennig, being careful not to mention blackmail and extortion.

  He shook his head and poured some wine into a glass. “You might say that I’m his aide-de-camp. A military liaison officer. Just a glorified messenger, really. The governor issues an order and I have the job of conveying it to the m
ilitary commander. Or anyone else who matters.” He smiled at Irmela. “And what about you, my dear? I can see that you’re in the naval auxiliary but doing what, may I ask.”

  “I’m in signals.”

  “Ah. You’re a Valkyrie. A lightning maiden. No wonder this fellow Gunther is spending time with you, my dear. He always did like to stand a little too close to high voltages. In nineteen thirty-eight, he almost got his fingers burned. Didn’t you, Gunther?”

  “It’s a wonder I have any fingerprints left,” I said.

  At this Irmela picked up my right hand and kissed my fingertips, one by one, and while I appreciated the tenderness of her gesture, I could have wished that she’d not done this in front of Harold Hennig, for whom all knowledge was power, probably. It wasn’t that I thought he might tell my wife, but there was just something about him knowing about us I didn’t like.

  He grinned. “Well, we’re all survivors, eh?”

  “For how much longer, though,” I said. “That’s the question.”

  “A word of advice, old fellow,” said Hennig. “There are only two people in East Prussia who still believe in the final victory. One of them is Adolf Hitler. The other is Erich Koch. So, if I were you, I’d avoid defeatist talk like that. I’d hate to see you end up decorating a lamppost for the edification of some foreign workers and refugees.”

  “It’s horrible the way they do that,” said Irmela.

  “And yet it is hard to see how else good order is to be maintained in this city,” said Hennig. “Iron discipline is the only way we are going to hold out for any longer.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I’m very glad to have left behind the Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse way of doing things. The Gestapo, I mean, with their torture chambers and knuckle-dusters. To be quite frank, I was never cut out for all that heavy stuff. Even with the law behind you, it’s not for me.”

  His eyes glanced momentarily at me and I wondered if he’d forgotten how my partner, Bruno Stahlecker, and I had been obliged by him to fetch Captain von Frisch from Gestapo HQ after Hennig and his thugs had finished beating the old man half to death. But even if he hadn’t forgotten about this and knew that I hadn’t either, it was probably best I didn’t mention it now. No one likes to be told that he’s a loathsome piece of shit in front of a beautiful woman.

  Hennig looked perfectly at ease, however, as if he’d been recalling his days with a student society given to displays of unruly behavior. He thrust his hands in the pockets of his riding breeches and pushed his chair back so that it stood on only two legs, rocking to and fro, and continued in this somewhat expansive mode, as if he was someone used to being listened to.

  “But whatever you think of summary executions, my dear, I can promise you that the Russians will do much worse than we are capable of. I think it’s only now that it’s beginning to dawn on people just what we’ve been fighting for all along. The decline of the West faced with Slav barbarism. I mean, the historian Oswald Spengler was right. If anyone ever wanted proof of that, it’s right here. Or at least a hundred kilometers east of here. I fear for the whole of European civilization if the Ivans conquer East Prussia.” He chuckled. “I mean, I could take you to my office and show you a Soviet newspaper, the Red Star, with horrifying editorials that you could hardly credit might have been written. One in particular comes to mind now: ‘Kill the Germans. Kill them all and dig them into the earth. We cannot live as long as these green-eyed slugs are alive. Today there are no books, today there are no stars in the sky; today there is only one thought. Kill the Germans.’ That kind of thing. Really, it’s quite shocking just how filled with hate for us these people are. One might almost think that they intended to drink our blood, like vampires. Or worse. I expect you’ve heard the reports about cannibalism. That the Red Army has actually eaten burger meat made of German women.”

  After Hennig’s earlier warning about defeatism I wasn’t disposed to argue that the Russians had been provided with good teachers in barbarism. But I did try to moderate his language a little. “I see no point in upsetting Miss Schaper with talk like that,” I said, noticing that she had paled a little at the mention of cannibalism.

  “I’m sorry,” said Hennig. “Lieutenant Gunther is absolutely right. Forgive me, Miss Schaper. That was thoughtless and insensitive of me.”

  “That’s all right,” she said calmly. “I think it’s best to know exactly what we’re up against.”

  “Spoken like a true German,” said Hennig. He turned in his chair and snapped his fingers at a waiter. “Bring us some brandy,” he said. “The good stuff. Immediately.”

  A bottle of ten-year-old Asbach Uralt arrived on the table and Hennig threw some banknotes beside it as if money meant nothing; and given that he worked for Koch, it probably didn’t. The splash around Paradeplatz was that, with the help of the institute’s ruthless manager, Dr. Bruno Dzubba, the diminutive Koch had amassed a personal fortune of more than three hundred million marks, and it was clear from the fistful of cash in Hennig’s hand and the expensively tailored uniform he was wearing that some of this money was coming his way, at least in the shape of a generous expense account. Hennig uncorked the bottle and poured three generous glasses.

  “Here’s to happier subjects,” he said and toasted Irmela’s eyes. “Your beauty, for instance. I confess I am very jealous of Lieutenant Gunther. You will forgive me if I say I hope you have a friend who’s a lightning maid, Miss Schaper. I should hate to be here for much longer without a charming young lady to spoil like Lieutenant Gunther.”

  “It’s she who’s been spoiling me, I’m afraid,” I said.

  “The mind reels at the very thought.” Hennig downed his brandy and stood up. “Well, thank you for a delightful evening, but I’m afraid duty calls. The governor has to address the representatives of the People’s Storm Unit here in the city tomorrow morning. Governor Koch has been appointed as their local commander. And I have to write his speech for him. Not that I have the first clue about what to say to them.”

  The People’s Storm Unit was the new national militia that Goebbels had just announced—a home guard composed of conscripted men aged between thirteen and sixty who were not already serving in some military capacity. With a keen sense of humor most Germans were already referring to the People’s Storm Unit as the Father and Son Brigade or, sometimes—and even more amusingly—the Victory Weapon.

  After he’d gone—but not before Irmela had promised to introduce him to some of her female friends—I breathed a sigh of relief and then downed my own brandy.

  “I can’t fault his taste in alcohol,” I said. “But I do hate that man. Then again, I hate so many men these days that I simply can’t remember them all or exactly why I hate them, except to say that they’re Nazis, of course. Which is as good a reason as any, I suppose. It’s so much easier to know why you hate people now.”

  “But why do you hate him in particular?”

  “Take my word for it, there’s a good reason in his case. It’s a righteous, holy thing to be able to hate a man like that. Love thy neighbor? No. It can’t be done. The fact is I really do believe that Jesus Christ would have made a special exception in the case of Harold Heinz Hennig. And if not, then it’s clear to me that it’s impossible to be a Christian. Just as it’s impossible to believe in a God who would let a hundred children die taking shelter in his church.”

  I paused for a moment and she kissed my fingertips again.

  “Please, Bernie. Let’s not talk about that anymore. I want to kiss every centimeter of you before I go to sleep tonight. And then I want you to do the same to me.”

  But I still had an itch that I needed to scratch. “That’s another thing,” I said. “I hate that he knows about us. That there’s something between us now. It worries me. For a man like that, all knowledge is something to be used like a loaded pistol.”

  Irmela sighed and put down my hand. “You’re crazy to worry about him,
Bernie. Think about it. What possible harm could he do us? Besides, he’s just a captain.”

  “Not just any captain. He’s an extension of Erich Koch. Did you see the way the waiters in here fawned over him? The quality of his uniform? That amber cigarette case? Besides, the man used to be a blackmailer. Possibly still is, for all I know. The leopard doesn’t change his spots. So maybe he’s got something on Koch. Perhaps Erich Koch is the lemon who’s being squeezed now. You know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. There must be a hell of a lot to get on a bastard like Erich Koch.”

  “You’ll have to explain some of that. Why is Koch a lemon? I don’t understand.”

  I told her all about the von Frisch case, to which Irmela very sensibly replied:

  “But he’s got nothing on you, Bernie Gunther. Or on me. Neither of us has anything to hide. Nor do we have any money to give him. Do we? Besides, there’s a war on and there are more important things to worry about, wouldn’t you say? You’re worrying about nothing. If you’re going to blackmail someone you only do it when there’s a profit in it, surely?”

  “Why is he here now?” I asked.

  “It was a coincidence, that’s all.”

  I sipped my brandy and then bit my fingernail.

  “There’s no coincidence with him. He doesn’t arrive in your life without there being a reason. That’s not how it works with a man like that.”